templates VS ESP8266-HTTP-IR-Blaster

Setting two on/off cycles with 50 discrete schedules seems like a very inefficient way of doing this when the same thing could be accomplished with two rules. Any compatible device flashed with Tasmota or similar FOSS firmware would make this possible.

Have a look at https://templates.blakadder.com

Another WiFi based option is any compatible smart relay or switch flashed with Tasmota. In Tasmota, SwitchMode 15 decouples the switch state from the relay and sends status changes via MQTT to HA.

2) If you want to switch on/off the light switch in your room, your best bet is to replace your regular light switch with a WiFi light switch. (Yes, you must have some electrical knowledge to do this. But trust me, this is best, most reliable way.) See https://templates.blakadder.com/ for some good devices. Many of them can be re-flashed, so instead of using "their app", the light switch can be a web server that you can talk to from any computer on your network (including your laptop, your phone, etc).

If you're familiar programming ESP boards take a look at this repository of compatible devices.

Wifi switch, I suggest one that runs tasmota. Blakadder website seems to help.

I cannot find the correct model for this plug. On the back it says "WiFi Smart Plug / TWSP017" but I cannot find any reference to this online. I looked at the (long) list of pictures of plugs and sockets at the templates.blakadder.com site, but without finding anything that looks quite like it. There is one power socket, one LED (that never seems to be lit) and one button on the left side. It is a square shape with rounded corners; too generic a description to be useful I'm afraid.

You mention incompatibilities. I am not 100% what you mean but here's a link of Zigbee2Mqtt supported devices and Heres a list of tasmota supported devices . i'd reference these before buying anything.

The comments in your Link show that the infrared transmitter is just a LED without any amplifier or even transistor. Your will not be able to drive this reliably over a distance. This is essentially a LED with a resistor. A quick Google shows something like this as solution: https://github.com/mdhiggins/ESP8266-HTTP-IR-Blaster

If you're willing to do a DIY project, I built one of these using some cheap components and an ESP8266 board. For hooking into my setup (currently just turns a device on/off), I just installed this plugin, which also allows you to store the state of the device. For what I need, this has worked pretty well, but this may not be for you if you're not interested doing anything on a breadboard, let alone soldering.

Where possible, I use HomeKit enabled devices (TV and AppleTV) and HomeBridge (receiver). This allows HomeKit to know the current state of the device (on or off and what input a device is on). In addition, I built a DIY infrared blaster that I found on GitHub. I currently have this all on a bread board and just use a plugin that sends HTTP requests to the device to turn on/off any devices that only work via IR.

This isn’t exactly what you asked for, but maybe it will help. https://github.com/mdhiggins/ESP8266-HTTP-IR-Blaster

link to project

If you don't have another home control system in place already (harmony, home assistant, etc) something like this is probably the easiest https://github.com/mdhiggins/ESP8266-HTTP-IR-Blaster