My nightstand lights are connected to a surge protector plugged into a Zigbee smart plug plugged into a dumb wall outlet controlled by a single dumb wall switch.

I have the smart plug set to default=On, so the wall switch works fine, and I can also turn the lights off from my phone or via an automation. All good so far.

What I WANT is to be able to turn the lights ON without getting out of bed, and irrespective of the position of the switch.

I tried putting a second smart plug in the switch-controlled outlet and making an automation to toggle the surge protector's smart plug when the switch's empty smart plug powers off/on via the wall switch, but it looks like it's not simple to detect a Zigbee device "disappearing". I found some integrations that detect zigbee devices disappearing, but those seemed more for running health checks to detect and repair moved devices than for live detection.

Any suggestions?

Edit:

Looks like a relay behind the switch will be my best bet. Thank you all!