Detecting Appliance Standby State and Storing State Without Microcontroller or Arduino

I am designing a machine which can detect that an appliance is on standby, and carry out a function based on this. But can this be done without the use of a microcontroller? The machine will need memory to remember the state of an appliance, hence i decided to use an arduino, but is it possible to store memory without the use of a microprocessor in an analog sense?

You need a flip flop or a latch of some kind, staying with digital, logic gates, or relays will do it, in the analog domain, an op amp or a few transistors.
Some configurations have a ambiguous state, and when powering up as well, could go to either state, so you need to be aware of that, and set them to a known state. Most assume that power remains on the system, generally the information will be lost if the power goes off,
cheers,
Richard