I have three lights in my ceiling. I replaced the middle light with a ceiling fan LED light combo that has a remote control. It works just fine as long as the light switch is on at the wall, which turns on the other lights as well. How do I fix this so that I can operate the ceiling fan without having all of the lights turned on?
Triple Remote
Replace the two regular lights with some sort of remote-controlled lights. Unfortunately, the most common thing of that type seems to be fan/light combinations. I have a hunch that three fans in the room will probably be a bit much. And this will cost quite a bit.
But there are some other types of remotes. For example, you can replace the bulbs with “smart bulbs” and then set up smart switches that control them. Ideally program the smart switches to control the two bulbs at the same time. I know this can be done but have no specific product recommendations. (Product recommendations are generally not a good idea here at DIY SE anyway because products change over time while the Q & A remain.)
Rewire
There are 2 possible ways this set of fixtures could be wired. Basically either power goes to the switch and then switched power to the lights or power comes in at one of the fixture boxes but bypasses that fixture and goes down to the switch. If power goes to the box with the light/fan first then you can rewire to get exactly what you want.
But odds are that power either goes to the switch first or goes to the fixture nearest the switch and not the “middle”. Assuming that’s the case then changing the fan/light to always be on (i.e., controlled purely by the remote) would require running a new cable somewhere. There is a small chance (especially if you are in New York or Chicago) that you have conduit instead of cables. If you have conduit then this is actually relatively easy as you can add an additional wire to make everything work the way you want it to. But if you have cables, which is the case for most of the US, then you would need to replace one or more cables, which is generally a significant amount of work to do in a finished space.
Pull Switches
As noted by crip659, you could replace the two light fixtures with fixtures that have pull chains. That is simple and inexpensive. However, it removes the ability to flip a switch as you enter the room to turn on a light, which is a code requirement. If you keep the fan/light remote on the wall next to the light switch then you should be OK. But if that remote moves around – e.g., put it on a bedside table when you go to sleep, then that is not a good solution.