Are you saying your light bulbs are wired hot, and the switches switch neutral? Or are you saying something else? If light bulbs are wired hot, solution 1.
If your light bulbs are NOT wired hot then see solution 2
Solution 2) However, if you were able to power one GE zwave switch by connecting the wires in the other box, then your light is not “hot” and you could place the linear aux switch in the box you tied the wires together. The linear Aux does not switch power so you are good to go.
Solution 1)
If your wiring is truly such that light bulb is always hot with the switches switching neutral, then you could use the old GE zwave switches that do not require neutral.
Would you be okay with old school incandescents?
If your setup is really switching the light bulb hot, then your load and neutral are like line and load.
I have one box that did not have a neutral and had a halogen flood light. Bought an the old style GE zwave switch on eBay.
I am saying I don’t have power to switch one, which is connected to switch 2 via traveler, which is then connected to light which is the only option that works with GE bulbs.
I have one of the many other options and which one is VERY difficult to figure out. At least it is for me.
I have some which have one light so maybe wired like options 2 or 4.
I have some which have several lights so no idea how they are wired.
If the zwave switches don’t work like standard three way switches which can handle any of these connection types then I don’t have the knowledge/patience to rewire them.
I was able to get my second switch working by untwisting the neutral bundle and then re twisting it all together. It did not seem like any wires were loose but that did the trick. Like I said, I was getting the blue light and the click sound before but no light. If I disconnected the neutral the blue light would go out and no click sound.
Is it possible that the switch was getting some power from the neutral but not enough to pass thru to the light?
After wards I was able to install another 6 switches throughout the house no problem.
Found this article while having the same issues, retwisting the white wires together fixed it. I think the wire GE provides just sucks, for my next installs ill just use some wire pulled from romex.
I have installed 24 GE switches/dimmers (plus many add-ons for 3 and 4-way set-ups) so far and not had a single issue. I suspect you just had an iffy connection and reconnecting it fixed it. There’s nothing wrong with the pigtails GE provide.
The switch is not passing neutral to the fixture. The neutral on the switch is for the switch radio and relay not the fixture. Your fixture is connected to neutral elsewhere. Think about it, dumb switches do not have a neutral connection.
Hi, had the same problem as you (clicking sound, light briefly flicks). Found out that I was wiring it incorrectly. See the diagram below for how I made it work.
