In my home we have a bunch of stand alone lamps that are controlled using a myStrom wifi switch. We also have a couple of Philips HUE controlled bulbs as well as LED strips.

In order to control these lights up to now every member of the family had to have a smartphone or iPad handy in order to manually turn these lights on or off. Most of them are on a timer but every once in a while you need to manually control them.

So I was looking for a physical solution in form of a wifi button that would enable us to turn all lights on or off regardless if they are HUE or myStrom controlled. With the new “wifi button plus” I think I have found a solution that works quite well.

The myStrom “wifi button plus” is magnetic but also comes with a magnetic base which can be fixed to a wall.

Installation and setup

The wifi button plus comes with a printed quick start guide. Based on the guide you just have to :

remove the plastic latch in order to turn it on
connect the button to your wifi using WPS or using a manual process connect directly to the buttons own wifi signal to set it up

My google wifi home router does not support WPS so I had to do it the manual way. It did take me at least four to five tries until I got the button connected to my network. This (I think) is due to the instructions being outdated.

The “wifi button plus” is delivered in a box that does not call it “wifi button plus” but only “wifi button”. At first I thought I had received the wrong product.

The manual says that when in manual mode the button should blink white but my button blinked white and red. Red usually means something bad is happening so I immediately thought something went wrong. But I later found out that indeed with the new “wifi button plus” this just signals that the button is in manual connection mode.

No plastic packaging. All done in cardboard – well done.

Once this issue was resolved it was easy to add the button using the myStrom mobile app which is available for iOS as well as Android.

Configuration

If you just want the button to control your other myStrom products, then you can just use the myStrom app to configure what the different button presses do. There are four different types:

single press
double press
long press (2 seconds)
touch

In order to control a bunch of myStrom switches AND some Philips HUE lights at the same time, you need a second app called “myStrom click“.

The myStrom click app currently is in BETA but works well.

This app allows you to first add your Philips HUE or Sonos devices and once you’ve accomplished that you can set certain actions to each of the four button press types.

Turning all our lights on and off using just one or two button presses

Unfortunately the Philips HUE actions that are available on the wifi button plus do not allow you to use a “toggle” action. This means that I was not able to set all the myStrom and HUE lights so that they just turn on and off using one press which uses the “toggle” function for all the HUE lights as well as all my wifi switches.

So I had to use the “single press” action to explicitly turn all myStrom and HUE devices ON and the “double press” to explicitly turn them all off. Works fine but it “wastes” a button press type which I could have used for something else.

The button is magnetic so it was easy to just place it on one of our metal pillars in the living room.
One press turns all the myStrom and HUE lights on and a double press turns everything off.

Update: After checking out the IFTTT controls that are available for the myStrom Service I found a nice little applet that lets me toggle Philips HUE lights with just a button press and not just turn them on or off.

This applet is available on the IFTTT website and can be used by anyone.

Adding Sonos controls

Again as above right now you can not add a simple “play/stop” toggle to one button press type. You have to map a “play” and “stop” action to a separate button press type. As I had already used the “single press” and “double press” I did not bother to add Sonos controls to this particular button. I am used to control my Sonos system to a dedicated iPad Mini that sits right next to my Sonos 5 central speaker which works just fine.

Update: I also found some great sonos applets for IFTTT but unfortunately none of them lets you toggle the Sonos service. I guess it must be a Sonos issue as they do not seem to have a toggle action.

Verdict

Controlling my myStrom and Philips HUE lights with just one physical button works great and this was the main reason why I purchased the button.

I still have two button press types available (long press and touch) which leaves room to add other systems which might be available later as well.

Now when we leave the house you can just double press the button and all the lights in the house shut off. No more having to get out our smartphones to do this. Problem solved : )

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