Last year, the time had come: The first Philips Hue switch ever, the Hue Tap, was discontinued. Although it is still available for purchase, the switches that are currently still available are remnants. However, the name Hue Tap will probably not disappear completely from the market.
A new entry has appeared in the online store of an authorized Philips dealer from the USA. There you can already pre-order a “Philips Hue Tap Switch with Bluetooth (4th Gen)” – unfortunately without further information. Only the price is already declared at 49.95 US dollars.
So far, I have not been able to find any further information about the switch, so the following statements are just guesses on my part. I could well imagine that Signify is working on a completely new Hue Tap, because for Hue beginners there is currently no switch that can be freely configured via the Bluetooth app.
What is interesting in this aspect is that the switch module known from the Hue Tap, which we also know from the Friends of Hue switches, is now also available with Bluetooth Low Energy. However, a solution that supports both Bluetooth and ZigBee would be needed – because only then users could continue to use the switch when they expand their Hue system and switch from the Bluetooth-App to the Hue Bridge.
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Such a stupid thing to do: discontinue a product without a replacement