Trying to install a GE Smart Dimmer, and having an odd issue. I wired it up (I do have neutral, and ran the pigtail that came with it to the neutral bundle), but it doesn’t work. When I check to see if the lines are hot, the “line” produces a tone with the tester, but the “load” does not. When I put the dumb switch back in, it works fine. My feeling is I have a defective switch but wanted to make sure I wasn’t overlooking something else. I installed a GE Smart Switch (not dimmer if that matters) at the same time in the same way in a different location, and it works just fine. Any suggestions to check before returning the switch?
ive recently put-in similar GE switches(not dimmer ones though) and have had no problems.
but if there was anything i encountered with my install was, the wires were not always consistent i.e. colors did not match, a wire that i thought was the LINE based of wire placement on the dumb switch was actually the LOAD and vice versa.
one thing i may have differed from your install is that i used a multimeter to distinguish which one is the LOAD and which one is the LINE. this was because when i just used the voltage tester, id get beeps on both LOAD and LINE wires!
other than that… it may be a defective switch, did you buy it new? open box? ive read of posts where these switches are returned and the hardware store would just put them back on the shelve without checking for any issues with the switch.
2 things:
- does the blue LED come on?
- did you check the air gap switch to make sure it’s not pulled out?
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Ok, so the difference between the Smart Dimmer and the dumb switch is. That the dimmer needs to be powered when the switch is off, where as the dumb switch doesn’t.
So the load refers to the light fixture in the ceiling, so usually the wire coming from the top of the box is for load (Black wire).
The wires coming from the bottom of the box should be the power coming from the circuit breaker. Here there should be a pair of wires (Black - Line and White Neutral). From what I’ve seen in junction boxes with more then one switch is all the White Neutrals get tied together with a wire twist connector. This wire usually doesn’t get connected to the dumb switch. But with a smart switch you’ll need it so that the switch gets power even with the light switched off. So use the short white wire the came with the smart switch to tie it into that white wire/neutral wire bundle and then to the Neutral line on the smart switch.
I hope that helps.
Is it the only switch that controls the light?
I would lead to not wired right. As mentioned above. You need to get the led to light, then you know the switch has power to it’s control circuit and radio
Thanks for all the help. The key was the air gap switch. I would say I feel stupid for not realizing that, but this is the toggle switch version, not the paddle version so there isn’t an LED and the air gap switch is a little slider that I didn’t even realize was there. After @johnconstantelo suggested that, I figured it out by googling, but I looked back at the install instructions and I found absolutely no mention of it at all, so I didn’t even think to try it. But I wired it back up, slid that over and it works fine now.
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