Dear HA Community.
Simple problem: basement lights are on but nobody realizes it as the physical switch does not have a indicator light.
Simple solution: a Zigbee LED indictor that could be turned on or off depending on automation scripts.
There are a lot of Zigbee buttons out there but as far as I can tell non allows to control its status lights (if present).
I found this related thread from 2019 but no real solution.
Any ideas?
For Zigbee to do that, the function has to be available in the interview or you would have to create a custom quirk to make it available.
I would look at espHome for that kind of thing, or just use a light group to clone the basement light state with a light upstairs. Like the light outside a walk-in freezer or dark room. HA can do this that way.
Are the basement lights controlled by HA? I assume so, or how would the Zigbee LED know whether they were on or off?
If this is the case, presumably their state can be displayed on a dashboard?
Old mobile phone displaying the dashboard stuck on the wall wherever the Zigbee LED would have been.
Ok so I had to help myself here. I found a tiny ESP32 with an onboard LED for 12€ (Waveshare ESP32 S3 Mini). In the case I printed the dimensions are 26x21x8 mm. The code for the ESP can reconnect to WIFI and MQTT.
I use WIZ bulbs as they can be operated without a cloud and have a variety of convenient effects. After HA registration I delete my account with WIZ but they work locally. Such WIZ bulbs are quick with changing their availability status. This is what you can use to trigger automations. In my case I added all bulbs in the basement to a group. Should either be on for more than 15 minutes the LED indicator of the ESP32 turns on. After 2 hours the automation sends a notification to my cell phone.
ESP32 code and STL printer file available here.
