Pull your switches out of the boxes and take some pictures that clearly show the connections.
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Alright, I will do that tonight when I get home (in about 6 hours) and post an update. Thanks for being so ready to help!
EDIT: the website (in order to protect itself from spammers) is preventing me from posting all my pictures here. I uploaded them to an imgur album with descriptions. They can be found here https://imgur.com/a/OTL0Q3s
I hope this is not too inconvenient for you!
Alright, I got some pictures, hopefully I got everything that you need. I am fairly new to the world of electricians, so if I get the lingo wrong and I don’t make sense, please do not hesitate to ask. If not, please let me know. I have two switches in this 3 way configuration. One is inside, one is located in the garage. The garage switch is in a double box (I think that’s called two gang?).
I can only put one picture in a post apparently, so I am going to have to split this into multiple posts. I have 11 pictures, so this could take a while.
This is the indoor switch. It has 3 wires connected to the switch itself, and a lonely wire leading to a wire nut. I though this would be a neutral, but I am not sure since I think those should go in and out of the box, requiring at least two wires.
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Close up of the same switch box. You can see the 3 wires going left for the switch and the one single wire going right for the wire nut. Also worth noting that the wires are coming in from the top.
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I am very concerned that smart switches won’t fix in your metal gang boxes. I looked at the pictures and they are all extremely shallow. GE, Zooz, Inovelli, and Lutron are all similar size.
Here is a GE measurement as an example.
Are you in the US? I haven’t seen purple wires before. But regardless wire color isn’t required by US code.
I just popped out a switch and took some measurements, and it they fit with 1 cm to spare.
And yes, I am in the US. Illinois to be precise 
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Based on the pictures I believe you have power going to the light first and then each switch runs from it. I suspect this because each of the 3 wires hooked up to the switches are coming in and go straight to the switch versus other wires in the box. Also notice in the single gang box you have 2 purple traveler wires and in the other switch only 1, one of the travelers is wire nutted to another hard to see color.
Without seeing the wiring in your fixture, if that is accessible, I cannot provide much help.
If that is the case, am I correct in interpreting I have the line-switch-load-load-switch assuming the wiring in the lights check out? And when you say you need to see the wires in my fixtures, are those the lights that I would control with the switches? Because if so, I will try to take that apart this weekend.
No you have line-load-switch. In this case it’s hard to get smart switches working because in most cases you don’t have enough wires. But since you have that white wire tucked away there is hope. Again without seeing the fixture, aka light, wiring it’s hard to tell.
I agree with @ritchierich. Those boxes are extremely shallow. Even it the switch will cram in there, you’ll have wires which will be difficult to tuck. Additionally, the NEC requires boxes of a particular size which is typically calculated through a formula derived by a calculation involving the number of devices in the box, wires by guage, etc. At least in the old days, a switch counted as one device. I’m not sure if the larger smart switches we use today changes that calculation.
One thing you might consider would be to cut that shallow box out in put in a deep remodel box (the kind with ears that grab to the back of your sheetrock/lathe.
I’m also leaning toward you having power to the light first. I’m curious, do you have Romex going into those boxes, are are there conductors run through conduit?
It appears he has metal conduit and if he cuts them out he loses ground, which the conduit is doing. I wouldn’t recommend cutting these out. They do make switch box extenders that I have seen links to here in the community.
Yep, that’s why I asked. If that’s the case, you can’t retrofit as I suggested.
The switch box extenders I’m familiar with provide depth in the front of the box and extend the box out farther than it presently is. They’re usually used for when tile or stone is laid around the box and it’s no longer flush with the new surface. That kind won’t work here.
I don’t think it’s romex, as Ritchierich is correct in that my electrical boxes are indeed grounded, so I assume that grounding runs through the house in the metal conduit that also contains the wires.
I will try to take my lights off and look at the wires this weekend and get back to you. Thank you all so much for helping me look into this! I really appreciate it!
Yep, if you have conduit, it’s likely you don’t have Romex but have individual wires in the conduit. (No bare copper ground is another indicator.) In that case, the conduit and the box is the ground, so you need the metal box. Disregard what I said about retrofitting a box go gain space as it would be extremely difficult with a conduit connection.
Post weekend update:
When trying to take apart my fixtures, I realized I might be in over my head here. I have decided to get an electrician and get these switches installed by a professional. Thanks for all the help though!
Good decision. Hopefully your electrician will walk you through what he does so you can learn and repeat.
Hello! My need is a slight modification of the schematics shown above. I have multiple lights between the switches, and power into one of the lights. Could someone please help me combine the scenario of these two schematics?
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3-Way Switch (Multiple Lights between switches #1)
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3-Way Switch (Power into Light)
First, thank you so much for this post, its very through and informative.
Even with the details in here, I am in need of help as I could not figure out the wiring setup for my light switch.
Situation: I have two switches that control 3 lights that are above the stairs. One switch is at the top of the stairs, other is at the bottom. Both switches will turn light off / on, so a travel wire is in use.
When I accessed the wiring for the switch at the top of the stairs, I was instantly confused as the switch has 2 runs of romex coming into the box for this switch (box has other wiring for hallway lights) and some wiring that is pig-tailed from these two runs of romex and run out the bottom of the box.
The switch at the bottom of the stairs has only 1 run of romex and it has a Red wire, White wire, Black wire, and ground.
I took two pictures of the upstairs switch box and labeled one of them (will only let me upload one). I assume my setup is close to the above example “power into light”. I just wanted to confirm that I am stuck and the GE switches I bought wont work as my wiring setup doesn’t quite match anything above.
I was able to figure out my 3-way switch with 2 lights between the switches and the power going into one of the lights. This is how I understand it.
- Send the line from the light junction to the common of the first switch
- Send the travelers on the first switch to the travelers on the second switch
- Send the common on the second switch to power the two lights together (not one after the other)
- Send the the neutrals back to the house
I believe yours is like mine was.
Top of stairs
Black line into line of main switch
White into neutral of main switch
Ground to ground of main switch
Black load into load of main switch
Red into teaveler of main switch
Bottom of stairs
Black into line of companion switch
White into neutral of companion switch
Ground into ground of companion switch
Red into traveler of companion switch
I’m no electrician, so take my advice at your own risk