Long story short, my dishwasher has an LED on the bottom of it that turns on when the dishwasher is on, and off when its finished.
Does anyone know of a tiny light sensor (or something else) that I can put near the LED to retrieve the light value. Then I can retrieve the lux value in HA and use some logic to distinguish if the dishwasher is on
I cant think of one like that offhand, but you may consider placing a vibration sensor on the chassis. The vibration would indicate whether it was running. Hope this helps
Get a smart power plug with power measurement, I think that is the easiest way. You can get ones with wifi for a couple of bucks. You can also go zigbee, but usually they are a little more expensive.