You can do it with the official features in either app, including smartlighting, as long as your virtual device has both capability.switch and capability.sensor. 
That causes it to show up as both a switch and a sensor. When you turn the switch on, the sensor is marked as open. When you turn the switch off, the sensor is marked as closed. So you can turn the switch on and off with pretty much any automation. And it registers to an echo routine as the sensor opening and closing.
Details are in the FAQ, including a link to the code you can use for the virtual device that has both capabilities.