I used to lean back, put my feet on the desk and eat my lunch while I read a book for 45 minutes or an hour, my back to the door of my office.

“Do you think he’s compensating for something?” -Shrek

If it can operate with a dumb switch, it can be run with an ESP32. You can probably also get an old fashioned wired keypad ( KEP-1 I think) for local operation.