A Simple Remote On/Off Switch?

I’ve looked around for such a beast for a long time, but either it doesn’t exist, or I’m not searching the right way…

I would like a simple switch (battery powered by a 2016 or 2032?) that one can put on a table or such next to a light that is controlled by a Z-Wave plug-in outlet. It’s nice to control turning the lights on and off by the app, but doing so in a lot of plug-in situations becomes extremely inconvenient when you just want to turn the light on or off quickly without having to go track down your phone or your ipad. I live in an old house where all the lighting it via room lamps, so wall switches aren’t an option, and swapping out wall outlets doesn’t really work either (think pre-code, two walls with outlets instead of four, etc). A simple switch that could be dedicated to a single on/off switch would be very convenient for visitors and the like, and I figure I must be looking for the wrong thing if I can’t find it.

There are many different options for this.

If you want one that looks like a switch, the Cooper 9500 accessory switch is battery-operated, but looks just like a wall switch. You can have that on the table.

I personally prefer the smartenIT 3 toggle switch. It’s also battery operated. Looks good on either a wall or lying flat on the table.

Many people like the Minimote handheld remote which has four buttons. That gives you a lot of options as long as it doesn’t get lost.

The following topic lists many of the buttons/remotes that people have used with SmartThings:

Most of these don’t have to be right next to the device that you want to control. Instead, they send the message to the hub, the hub sends a message to the device. So you can also use them to change the mode, to turn off a group of lights, or to trigger a SmartApp. So just depends on exactly what you want for each use case.

I like the smartenIT 3 toggle in part because it’s very intuitive for guests to use ( it looks and feels like a switch) and it’s big enough to label.

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Verbal interface via Amazon Echo and “connected devices” groups, is getting to be pretty easy.

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