My nightstand lights are connected to a surge protector plugged into a Zigbee smart plug plugged into a dumb wall outlet controlled by a single dumb wall switch.
I have the smart plug set to default=On, so the wall switch works fine, and I can also turn the lights off from my phone or via an automation. All good so far.
What I WANT is to be able to turn the lights ON without getting out of bed, and irrespective of the position of the switch.
I tried putting a second smart plug in the switch-controlled outlet and making an automation to toggle the surge protector’s smart plug when the switch’s empty smart plug powers off/on via the wall switch, but it looks like it’s not simple to detect a Zigbee device “disappearing”. I found some integrations that detect zigbee devices disappearing, but those seemed more for running health checks to detect and repair moved devices than for live detection.
Any suggestions?
Edit:
Looks like a relay behind the switch will be my best bet. Thank you all!
The goal is correct, but the current setup is incorrect. Right now, I have:
AC mains -> dumb switch -> zigbee smart plug
AND
AC mains -> zigbee smart plug -> surge strip with two lights on it
Your idea works in theory, but in practice, using a ZigBee plug as a power sensor -even if you managed to program a way of detecting its online/offline status, will probably have too many issues.
The protocol is designed for low power and so has to be robust to temporary connectivity issues from interference. You would either have too much latency between the switch and the light turning on/off, or you would have phantom switching of the light whenever some other device in your house desides to do its thing.
It is a genuinely neat idea you had though.
Theory is all I have! I’m too new at this. That’s part of what makes it fun!
Yeah, it sounds like I want a relay behind the switch.
Just replace the wall switch with a zigbee.