@Navat604, @ritchierich & @Synthesis: Thanks a lot, I couldn’t find this answer easily explained elsewhere. Once again, SmartThings just works.
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Sorry to ask this so long after, but I have the same situation but my “light” is in a ceiling fan in a 24’ ceiling. I don’t want to have to hire scaffolding to rewire. Any way to rig this from the master or aux switch?
Unfortunately no because you need neutral for your aux switch. With option 3 the only way to get a neutral there is to rewire the fixture. Do you have any other switches in your second box?
Yes, there is another switch for a different light. I have it already set up as an aux switch to a different light. It’s weird that the box has the neutral for the one light but not the other.
With electrical wiring there are many ways to accomplish the same thing. It’s really up to the electrician and the easiest way to run the wires at the cheapest cost. Today’s code, at least in my area, requires a neutral at the switch, but this isn’t helping your situation.
Is this other switch on the same circuit as your fan? In other words if you turn the breaker off, does the other light not work? If so you could leverage that neutral. Then box 2 will have to become your master switch since it has the load wire.
Box 1: Aux
Hook both white wires to your aux switch neutral or bundle them and use a pigtail to the aux neutral
Hook up the red to the traveler
Bundle the black wires with a wire nut.
Box 2: Master
Hook up black to load
Hook up red to traveler
Hook up white as line (seems odd, but if you look at diagram you will see the white wire is hooked up to the black from switch 1 in the fixture)
Hook up a pigtail from neutral and hook up to neutral
Edit: the above instructions assume you have option 3 from the following page:
Yes I believe I have option 3, but since I haven’t gotten up in my room to the fan light I can’t tell how it’s wired up there.
Unfortunately, in the box that has the two aux switches, the two are on different breakers. :(. Stupidly, I did try to wire it to the other neutral but naturally that didn’t work.
Thanks for your help and ideas!
sorry to bring up an old post here but im not sure where to start and this thread has the most relevant info to my question so here goes:
I seem to have a hybrid wiring of diagram 3 and 9. i’ve drawn out my own diagram and took reference photos of the electrical boxes in hopes that that will help you understand what is going on with my wiring. the short version is that i don’t have a white neutral wire at switch 2. i just have 2 travelers and load to light bulb. but the part that makes it different from diagram 3 is that the travelers do not go through the light fixture box so i can’t tie in that way. they simply travel from switch 1 to switch 2. i have line (hot), neutral, and the 2 travelers in switch 1. the light fixture has white neutral (from switch 1 as far as i can tell) and a load (orange) that goes to switch 2. that is all that is up there. so, again, photos are being attached to help explain this, but I’m trying to figure out how i can get Neutral to switch 2 with what i got. i had one idea (i wont bore with the details) but it ends up with no cable left to put in switch 1 “Load”. but it involves tying a traveler into the neutral. im just guessing thats not correct and as we all know, just “testing it out” with electricity is not smart. please anyone that can help would be very appreciative and/or if you know a better place for me to copy this request i will gladly do that.
Thanks all
B
PS. to make things more complicated, switch 2 as im calling it (2 blue travels and 1 orange load) is pass through tied to the actual switch a few feet away. (best i can tell a past owner wanted to move the location of the switch.) so you’ll see in the photos the 2 blue and orange lines passing through a box, those go to switch 2 which is later pictured with 3 wires labelled T1, T2, Load. but suffice to say for easy discussion those are the 2 blue travels and 1 orange load at switch 2
(UPDATE: Photos now have labels to help)
SWITCH 2 (pass through)
Fixture
Switch 1
Switch 2
here’s what you will need to do to get this working since you have only 3 wires at switch # 2.
You will have to swap the wires at the light fixture to bring the neutral to switch # 2. White wire of the light bulb need to swap over to the red wire at the light fixture. This red wire is now you neutral wire of the light bulb going to your switch # 2.
The Black wire of the light bulb swap to the white wire of the light fixture. This black wire is now your load wire going to your switch # 1.
At switch # 1. find that white wire going to the light fixture. Label it load wire and connect it to the load terminal of the master switch.
connect line (red) to master switch Line.
connect neutral to master switch neutral.
connect blue traveler # 1 to traveler of master switch traveler.
Connect the blue traveler # 2 to the neutral bundle. This will give you neutral at switch # 2.
At switch # 2
The wire from the light fixture is your light neutral. Connect that to blue travel # 2 and have a pigtail to the add-on switch neutral.
connect the blue traveler # 1 to the add on traveler.
label everthing since all the color code are off.
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Check out line-switch-load-switch-2 in the FAQ.
Edit:. I see the interesting setup. Follow @Navat604’s instruction. You’ll need to pass the neutral through one of the blue travelers and then back to the light. Otherwise the rest of the FAQ for that option will work.
One other note: I’m not sure if you are interested but you could also wire another add-on switch in the pass through box if you wanted a 4-way switch.
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Thank you very much for the help. I ended up thinking of something very similar to that but with fishing a wire through (was not looking forward to that.) But the fish tape helped me remember the smoke detector is about 3 feet from the light fixture and is wired to the house power. Popped that open and there were all my travelers and load and more neutral bunches. Essentially giving me diagram 4 ish. But once I reread your post simplifying it down to netural/travel at slave switch and the thought of using the travelers to tie into whatever I needed I was able to do it. Attached photos show the smoke detector and sorta show what I did.
The details if you’re curious, are that I cut one traveler and the orange load at the smoke detector box. The cut traveler, (call them T1A and T1B) I tied T1A to the orange load to light. T1A goes back to master switch. T1B goes to slave switch so I tied it to neutral at the smoke detector box. Then I had neutral/line/load and traveler (T2 untouched) at master and a new neutral with T1B and traveler (T2) at slave. Capped the orange load at the smoke detector and slave switch location. I most definitely labeled EVERYTHING for me and any other future people. Learned that from my dad years ago.
The good news is once I figured all this out, the other 4 switches including another 3 way went together very easily.
I really do appreciate the fast response and love how helpful the open forums of smartthings are. Thanks all for the help. Hopefully this can help anyone else with similar issues down the road as well.
Photos:
New wiring:
Update: well apparently I never hit send on this reply and it’s been sitting here waiting. But because it’s been a few weeks I can update with more info. My above explanation of what I did has been working perfectly to date. Again, thanks a lot for the help. My advice to anyone else who has the same problem I did and can’t find the wires they need, start looking in near by electrical boxes. Switches/lights/outlets etc. Anywhere your travelers may go by on their… Travels… Wow.
Glad you got it working. That junction box sure makes thing much easier. 4 ways is pretty single once you have a basic understanding of it.
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What is the solution for option 5? This is a very helpful discussion – but it appears each option may have a different (or even multiple different) solutions. is there a place to see what my options are for #5?
Please see the FAQ for solutions to the various options as mentioned by @jhamstead above:
[FAQ] GE 3-Way Wiring
Thanks. So, looks like I’m hosed. From what I can tell, I have the ‘power into the light’ configuration on my 3-way.
So, how can I 100% confirm I have the ‘power into light’ configuration 100%? At least without taking my light fixture apart. I have an old house (1950’s) and the switch box nearest to the light has 2 3 wires coming in. There is one black wire that is tied off in the first switch box and then a red wire to the switch then a red, white going to the switch from the second 3 wire. There is a white wire not used in the switch in the former 3 wire. Looks very much like the power to light – so I guess I need to buy the 14299 GE switch 
Sorry. One more try. So I purchased the 14299 “no neutral needed”. Which installation guide should I then use now? The FAQ does not show how to install a 14299. Thanks 
The instructions for the 14299 do not show how to install it for a 3-way configuration such as below:
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The 14299 will be at the left switch, the slave will be at the right switch.
In the diagram you posted, the power from the circuit breaker comes into the light box on the black lead. This is your hot wire. The lead is converted to a “Hot White” with the black tape to mark the line as hot.
This wire at the left switch will go to the LINE terminal on the back of the switch.
The black wire coming into the left switch box from the light will go to the LOAD terminal on the back of the switch. The red wire in the box that goes to the other switch will connect to the TRAVELER terminal on the back of the 14299.
Disconnect and cap the black wire that goes to the other switch box on both ends. Remove the tape on the second white wire. I believe the slave switch requires a neutral in order to operate so YMMV with having a secondary switch.
Thank you so much The second switch I have is the ‘GE Add-on’ so no neutral. Thanks so much again!
I’m 99% sure the neutral is required for the slave switch. A low(er) voltage signal is passed across the traveler wire when the slave is turned on or off. The neutral is required, or otherwise the signal has no path to flow to complete the loop.
I ran into the same issue in my home in a four way setup when one of the boxes did not have a neutral passing through it. I added a neutral lead to the box by fishing a wire through the floor joists and up from underneath.
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