Smart buttons and remotes don’t get enough love from smart home users, but they have so many uses. Nothing quite beats a physical, clicky button—especially when voice assistants and touch interfaces can feel unresponsive.
Here are some places where your smart home could use a smart button.
- Connectivity
-
Matter-over-Thread
- Color
-
White
The IKEA BILRESA is a smart remote with two buttons that can control Matter devices or trigger automations. It’s powered by a AAA battery and comes with optional adhesive on the back for mounting to a wall or furniture.
Bedside table
Click to get up
Looking for a quick way to start or end your day? Stick a smart button next to your bed and use it to trigger a morning or nighttime routine. This could be a simple case of triggering a scene, like a “good night” action that turns off all the lights in your home and locks the doors.
Alternatively, you could have it do the opposite and start preheating your coffee machine, turn on bedroom or mood lighting on dark mornings, or even raise the blinds slightly. Since most smart buttons and remotes have multiple triggers like short and long presses, you can even set up a few emergency functions like a button that turns all the lights on if you suddenly need to get up.
In your car
Just remember it only works at home
I had to install a new garage door opener last year. Even though it cost me a pretty penny, I still only received two key fobs for opening the door. In the end, I installed a Wi-Fi garage door opener based on the ESPHome framework so I can open the garage door with my smartphone, wearable, or voice.
Having the garage door available in Home Assistant (and by extension Apple Home) means I can trigger the door opening and closing using a remote control. It’s perfect if you have more than one car, or have guests staying who might want a dedicated fob for opening the garage. You can add a toggle for the door to one press, and toggle extra garage lighting with another.
On top of dumb light switches
A battery-powered band-aid
Smart lightbulbs connected to dumb light switches are an inelegant solution that require you to keep the light switch turned on at all times. Even if you’re fully aware of this fact, it’s easy to slip up and turn a light off. A better way to deal with the problem is to mount a simple smart button on top of the light switch instead.
The best solution here is to 3D print yourself a light cover.
Near your smart speakers
The missing remote
I use an IKEA smart remote every single day while working to turn the volume up and down on my HomePod. Sure, I could mess with the slider in Apple Music or tell Siri to do it, but there’s no beating a physical button. This is relatively easy to do in Home Assistant by binding the media player “Turn down volume” and “Turn up volume” actions to a button, then specifying your speaker as a target.
On your desk or coffee table
Physical controls for core actions
My HomePod smart control stays on my desk at all times, but I’m considering adding some more physical buttons to my setup. You could use virtually any smart button for this, but an ESP32-powered macropad seems like one of the stronger options.
With a smart button (or several) you could trigger heating and cooling, adjust blinds or curtains, set scenes, turn on lights and set colors, change what’s playing, or even perform smart-home related actions on your computer.
In the garage
Doors, tools, and other things
My new garage door opener didn’t come with an internal switch. Though my garage is separated from the main house, it’s still nice to be able to open the door if someone traps me inside. A simple smart remote can open and close the door, so I’m not fumbling for the right button on the motor.
You might have other items in the garage that could benefit from a smart button. For example, if you have an energy-monitoring smart plug that stops charging your power tools once they’re full (triggered by the power consumption dropping to a certain level), you’re going to need some means of turning the circuit on when it’s time to charge again. A nice accessible “charge me” button could be just the ticket.
Next to the front door
Trigger things on the way in or out the door
You can build a pretty sophisticated smart home alarm system with some sensors and an integration like Alarmo. You can arm this routine automatically using your “good night” scene, but having a means to quickly turn it on or off (and disarm it in case it’s ever triggered) cannot be overstated.
That’s just one use for a smart button next to your front door, which you can hit on your way out or when you arrive home.
Looking for the perfect smart button? Consider IKEA’s $6 Bilresa Matter over Thread remote, part of the Swedish manufacturer’s revamped smart home range. Remotes double just as well as dedicated buttons for many of these tasks, and IKEA’s models come with wall mounts.