I absolutely love it. It's never been anything other than instantly responsive, works without the internet and I can turn all the house's lights off from my bed. Additionally, the utility rooms, hallways and bathroom lights are just fully automated so you never think about it. The regular switches are still there if you need them, but in over a year since installing it, I've not touched any of the traditional light switches.
My only issue is that the Hue Bridge has a maximum limit for the number of lights and accessories you can run, which I'm starting to get close to. The lights are also expensive, especially the low voltage outdoor lighting, so for that I just use a standalone ZigBee dimmer switch which integrates with the Hue system.
Did you remove the actual switch?
It is a little bit bulky due to the nature of it but that's not something that bothers me. If you're particular about your interior design, you may need to look elsewhere: there are also complete light switch replacement products that are thinner and look a bit sleeker, but I haven't felt the need to move to those.
Another thing I like about the Hue system is I had so much difficulty finding reliable combinations of non-smart dimmer switch and LED light. Despite spending a lot of money to get supposedly high quality LED compatible dimmers, one would break every few months and occasionally they seemed to cause my LED lamps to burn out or have other weird issues like not completely turning off. All dimmer switches I tried had a subtle buzzing at certain light levels too.
It's possible there is some combination of lights and dimmers that works great, but since switching to Hue, it's the first time in my life where my lighting system has required zero maintenance in over a year. Other than when a squirrel bit through my garden string lights...
You leave the toggle switch in the On position and mount this on top of it. Very clever.
https://tweakers.net/productreview/292224/philips-hue-dimmer...
The downside was that the light switch was now behind the door, and because I didn't want to re-route the cables for for the light switch I used a wireless switch, which seemed like a good solution. It was, but I also had all of the exact same problems you have.
For "just a guy" like me it's still an okay-ish solution as routing cables through the wall is a lot of work (or fairly expensive if you have a professional do it), but I don't think anyone who has ever lived with these things actually likes them.
I apologize to whomever is living there now. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't even realize it's wireless and were confused why it's such a shitty switch, and when the battery eventually ran out.
It's odd to me that it's the norm for the seller/buyer of the house to never meet. I bought a 1970s house awhile ago, and have slowly learned it's eccentricities as well as adding some myself. I think it'd be immensely helpful if it was the norm for everyone to walk through the house together and cover things like "oh this is a weird miscellaneous circuit that covers things in 3 different rooms", "this is this way because..."
1. I can't see from the position of the switch the state of the light, so I still after 5 years press the wrong switch sometimes.
2. Sometimes, maybe 5% of the time, the light doesn't change instantly, but up to 2 seconds after I pressed the button.
3. About 5% of the time, the light doesn't change at all. Then I either think I've pressed the wrong switch (see 1), or I have to turn around, walk back and try again.
I think the benefit is for the company who built the apartment, since they saved a few crowns not needing to run wires near the doorways. There is no benefit to the occupant, only problems.
At least the batteries in the switches are still fine.