Really? My light switches report to OH when they are changed. So openHAB always knows the states of the switches. I don’t have to deal with anything complicated. Maybe I just don’t understand what people are talking about but if I install a Shelly 1 behind a wall switch, for example I just have to hook it up to the existing wires and the existing wall switch an now I know the state of the lights at all times, and I can control them from the switch or from openHAB. And because openHAB can control it, the light can be automatically controlled with anything as simple as “turn on the light at 15:00” to using Christoph’s Design Pattern: Bayesian Sensor Aggregation and beyond.
Why is having the physical wall switch so much more complicated? There are no “redundat” wires or alternate control paths or anything like that. Just a smart relay and the wires that are already there.
As I’ve already said, except for controlling color (and that’s even starting to change) there is nothing automation wise that I can’t do with smart switches that is possible with a wireless configuration. And then the redundancy of manual control is built in.
I honestly don’t care what people ultimately do with their own system. That’s their business. But I do push back when people assert “X is really complicated” or “Y is really hard” when in my experience that is not the case.