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!
Here is a question you need to figure out: Switch is in the on position, and you use the remote to turn the light off, what happens when the switch is moved to off?
According to my wife the only satisfactory answer to this question is when the remote turns the light off the switch moves to off and so you cannot turn it off in this case! (she wants the same behavior from the old 3-way light switches that have been around for decades)
Nothing! The lights stay off.
I want to be able to turn the lights on or off from both the switch and the app, each overriding the other.
The ideal case would be the switch physically moving to match the app toggle position, but I don’t know if that’s possible.
See my other comment. I guess a 3-way-switch with a relay could work, but not a relay in parallel with the switch. Sequence might achieve the goal but it’s not fully functional