Battery-less Philips Hue Tap switch taps in for US availability

US customers can now buy the Philips Hue Tap switch from the Apple Store to easily control their Philips Hue lights. Previously the Hue Tap was only available in Europe, which makes sense as Philips is a Dutch company. The switch has no batteries and is powered through kinetics simply by pushing the buttons. Yep, buttons — there are four three smaller round affairs and one big button that comprises most of the face.

Those buttons are all programmable and can be hooked up to any "scene" (a combination of specific lights, colors, brightnesses) from within the Hue App on your Android device. Tapping a button once will turn on that scene, and again turns it off.

The Hue Tap is mountable, or it can be moved about freely. For the mounting a wall bracket and mounting tape are included in the box. Of course, you'll still need a Philips Hue bridge and Hue lights to really take advantage of the Hue Tap (a starter kit with one bridge and three lights is $200

Right now the Philips Hue Tap in the US is only available from the Apple Store (both in retail locations and online), where it is priced at $59.95.

Derek Kessler

Derek Kessler is Special Projects Manager for Mobile Nations. He's been writing about tech since 2009, has far more phones than is considered humane, still carries a torch for Palm (the old one), and got a Tesla because it was the biggest gadget he could find. You can follow him on Twitter at @derekakessler.