A Smart + Capacitive Touch Bulb Controller?

I'm putting this out there in the lounge since it's certainly one of those "first world problems" that I've not found a solution for. I see in the past, mostly a few years back, some other threads on similar topics, but no one ever seemed to find what I'd consider an ideal solution.

For a few decades now, I've have the same wrought iron lamps in my bedroom. It's a bit of an outdated tech now, but I use a capacitive touch adapter on the lamp right next to my bed. It's the only "dumb bulb" in the room at this point, and I've of course wanted to smarten it up, adding it to the grouped lighting I have otherwise in the room. The issue is, of course, the old tech and smart bulbs just don't seem to play nice together, because they were never intended to.

I don't want to just dump the capacitive setup, or the way it works at least. The purpose it's always served is as a very easy way to turn on a light at will, will a clumsy, reflexive reach in the dead of night if needed. Mumbling out an Alexa command when suddenly waking isn't ideal, nor is trying to find a specific switch. I'm a part of the "system" now, through years of just reaching out to a familiar wrought iron surface, and dang it, I don't want to change. :slight_smile:

I tried a few things to make the tech play nice together, even throwing in a smart switch and some rule planning, but the outcome seems to always have some sort of draw back.

What I'm looking for is a smart capacitive controller. I could envision it sitting in place of my current capacitive adapter, between the lamp base and a standard bulb. It would turn the bulb on and off with touch, but also connect (ideally through zwave) to a Hubitat or similar system to be turned on with the rest of the lights.

Has anyone made such a thing? Asking for...myself, because obviously no one else is going to have my strange use case, or so I would think. :sweat_smile:

I'd imagine that a dry contact relay such as the zooz zen51, which is intended to be installed behind a dumb wall switch, could be wired into such a setup to add the smart functionality.

1 Like