I’ve purchased the GE 12724 and the add on switch GE 12723 and installed them into each of the gang boxes. I successfully paired with smartthings, the blue light is on. The circuit is comprised of a total of 14 ceiling LED recesses lights 6.5W each form total of 91W. My issue is the lights remain on dimmley even when turned off and even at 100% the lights never turn fully bright (probably only 15%)
I am able to see the device in smartthings and turn on/off and dim, except for the issues above, any help would be appreciated as it is our main living room lights
I would throw one odder thought in this mix. With what you describe it sounds like you may be getting the “traveler” power.
I have done a bunch of switch upgrades in my house and have helped friends to so I am with the previous poster, try one switch (cap off wires in other box) first.
Thank You Shawn and Don, you were correct Shawn with the travelling wire. I originally had a 3 way setup that was working fine, wanted to add dimmer / z-wave. Removed the add-on switch and put back the old switch, corrected the main z-wave switch. Now although the lights do no go completely out (they stay slightly dim), but am able to get dim from low to full with a regular switch on the other end. Getting the add on switch to work still an issue. Step in the right direction.
Ok so got the add on switch to work, everything is working great, except the bulbs stay slightly on even in the off position. Assume there is some trickle current that constantly runs and since LED bulbs are only 6.5w each, enough to keep them slightly lit. Is this normal? Can anything be done about it?
I have a single LED bulb on a GE dimmer. When it’s off I do not get any light.
A main/master smart switch will not work correctly with a normal switch as it remote. Smart switches do not wire up the same as dumb switches.
There should not be any 120v power on your traveler between the master (load carrying) switch and the smart remote switch. The traveler is just so the remote switch can signal the main switch what to do.
The main switch should have a wire going to your load, to neutral,to line, and traveler to remote switch. Also ground but that’s just bare wire.
Remote needs the traveler (from main switch) and second wire to go back to neutral.
I would remove the traveler from the main switch. Get it working correctly. Then tackle the remote which is just 2 wires.
I’m still leaning towards it’s still not wired correctly. You can’t just swap a smart switch out for a dumb one. They don’t wire up the same electrically. They don’t control flow of power the same.
What happens to the lights when you pull the “air-gap” switch on the primary switch? When this is pulled the light should go out as it removes power to the switch.
I am sorry if I did not make it clear in my first post, but when I mentioned voltage on the “traveler” wire. That was meaning there should not be any. It should be a direct connection from the “traveler” lug to the other “traveler” lug. The neutral (white) wires should be tied to the primary switch neutral wire.
Will check the traveller wire when I get a chance, when I pull the air gap, lights go completely out, when I punch it back, the lights flicker for a split second then stay 100% off. As soon as I turn them on they will remain ever so slightly on. For now everything is working the main switch, add on switch and control from smartthings app with the exception of the lights staying slightly on with the light switched off.
When I did my most recent 3-way switch replacement I had the same problem your describing. It to was to LED lights. The problem turned out to be the wires in the ceiling box were not hooked up as one would expect. Instead of the common going to the white wire on the lights some jughead wired the commons as a pass through in the box and used the red traveler wire in the box as the common connection. This actually isn’t a huge deal with a traditional 3-way since it’s really just a big flip flop switch between the traveler and the common anyway but the GE switch does not operate this way. So when I hooked everything up as they should be the lights would turn on and off but always remained dim when off. I rewired the light fixture correctly and viola it worked perfectly.
I traced this down but disconnecting the dummy end of the switch and the red traveler from the load switch. Doing this the lights would not work and this made no sense since they should. I then started checking the light fixtures for continuity and before I could tone out the lines I noticed the common wire was wire nutted off and passing right through the box and the red was hooked up to the fixture. I corrected the wires ie white to white and the red traveler was wire nutted as a pass through in the ceiling. Sure enough after that the load switch worked exactly as it should. I then attached the dummy switch and the red traveler on the load switch. Powered the whole thing up and everything worked just like it was suppose to.
Before fixing the wiring it worked with the dummy switch connected because that dummy switch really only has the white common and red traveler hooked up and appeared this caused a back feed trickle from the dummy switch. It sounds like your situation might be similar or the same since yours is behaving just as mine did and I was pulling my hair out because everything looked to be hooked up correctly. It was in fact on both switches just not in the light fixture.
Jimmy yes the neutral wire is hooked up correctly, Steve thanks for the tip, would be a royal pain as I have 14 pots, trying to find faulty hookup won’t be easy, but makes sense to me. Will have to check out, when I get a chance.
