Zigbee light switch with nothing attached triggering an automation

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1

Hey folks,

Really getting to grips with home HA can hep with a few quirks in my house. We have a light in a porch that is switched from a single gang switch in side the house. In the past, someone has wired an outside light into the porch light with a switch in the porch. Therefore we have a situation where the outside light can only be on if the porch light is on. If the porch light is off, the outside light has no power.

I have plans to do a lot of work on this part of the house so will rewire it in a year or tow but for now, I am trying to figure out how I use HA to make it into two lights that are separately switched. I can replace the light switch with a smart switch and do a small change to have it fed with permanent live and neutral but this will mean it can act as a traditional wired switch. I can also just have the two bulbs, porch and outside, left powered and fitted with smart bulbs

so, as I want to keep traditional switching for other family members, could a 2 gang smart light switch be used that isnt actually connected to anything physically but trigger HA to turn on smart bulbs?

I hope that makes sense and I thought I would ask before dropping any money on a switch to test it

Thanks

J

2

You can do this. I have a smart switch in my bathroom that controls the main light, but the bathroom has two doors. I’ve installed a 2nd smart switch near the 2nd door that is attached to nothing. I use automations to make it so that when either switch is turned on, the other is turned on and similarly for when either switch turned off. Currently that’s four automations.
Here’s an example:

- alias: 'bathroom switch on to dummy switch on'
  trigger:
    platform: state
    entity_id: switch.bathroom
    to: 'on'
  action:
    service: homeassistant.turn_on
    entity_id: switch.bath_dummy
3

Thanks works like I thought it would :slight_smile: