I have been looking into this as I modified a ceiling fan remote to be controlled via the ThingShield. However the wall switch (which is basically an additional in-wall remote control to the canopy of the fan) does not interact with smartthings at all. I tried installing a smart bulb so that when the wall switch is on, it will show the bulb online, and then I set a rule that turns off the switch whenever I turn off the smart bulb. This will work and I will be able to tell the fixtures status when I am not home by trying to access the bulb. It is a clunky solution, however what I propose as a possible option, if you have the appropriate router, is to purchase a wifi connected bulb and create a presence sensor. Using some of the other forums here such as DDWRT presence sensor or the Asus Wifi Presence Detection and creating a presence instance for when that bulb is on (connected to wifi) combined with some rules and virtual switches you will likely have a pretty clean solution that can tell you whether the lights are on or off and can have automate.
This assumes a few things:
- The bulb connects automatically to Wifi when it turns on and off without any user interaction at the bulb.
- The bulb defaults to on when power returns via the “dumb” switch.
- There is not an extremely long connection time to connect to wifi. My current setup checks the router every 15 seconds which is likely faster than any polling system would take.
I am going to do a bit of research and see if I can find a wifi bulb that fits my needs and I will give it a go and report back. I believe the ecosmart zigbee bulbs which are sold only in canadian home depots seem to have a status change to off in SmartThings when they are powered off at the switch but I can not confirm or get a hold of any of these bulbs.