omg, i got so excited with your response and the diagram! thanks for making it super easy for my (N00b) to follow! I cant wait to get home tonight and try it! I will report back.
Everything you said makes complete sense and doesnt sound complicated. I will let you know should i have any questions. Thanks again Chris!
BTW the two white cables were tied together that i pulled from inside the wall. I took one out to wire to the new switch which is why only one has a cap on it. I will probably need a neutral when i wire up the switch next to it and covert that to zwave for the upstairs stairway lights.
Re: White wires⌠you probably still need to tie these together. These probably are running from one of your lights back to the breaker. Just like with the black lines if you break the path back to the breaker box the light wonât work.
The good news is that, assuming these are all neutral, you can easily connect all your neutral together. Assuming things were wired correctly all neutral lead back the same way and all neutrals are solid⌠that is, neutrals should never have a switch on them that could open or close making them un-usable (like the hot line we discussed above).
Now⌠the key part above is the âassuming things were wired correctly.â Older houses especially sometimes have creative wiring. Itâs always a good idea to not leave any wires hanging out just because youâre 99% sure they are dead! I speak from experience!
Below is the picture of the zwave switch on the left and the original dimmer on the right which is actually a secondary switch to a 3way where the primary is at the top of the stairs.
On the left I followed your instructions and wired the two black lines together pushed them in the back and the master of the original 3-way setup works fine turning desk light on/off.
I then put the original neutrals back together and added a new neutral cable from the bunch to the zwave switch.
As for power I added a new cable tied to the switch on the right.
Upon turning my power back on all switches worked as usual except no power to zwave switch. No blue light nothing.
I knew I had done something wrongâŚthe black wire plugged into the zwave switch I had put in load and not lineâŚooopsie my bad eye sight.
Soon as I fixed it it powered on, I added the device and created the automation. Low and behold it works like a charm with a slight delay, but thatâs fine by me!
ALL RIGHT!! Itâs it fun when you figure out something complicated like this and it works!! In the venerable works of one John âHannibalâ Smith: âI love it when a plan comes together!â
As for the slight delay⌠yeah, thatâs the one negative by-product of this setup. It takes that fraction of a second for the Hub to see the switch state change, then a fraction of a second to run the SmartApp that decides what to do, then the fraction of a second to send the command to the other switch. Iâd hoped that with local processing this would disappear, but itâs still there.
Generally itâs no big deal⌠every once it a while itâll hang up a good second or two or three, but those are pretty rare instances.
The delay and the click made by each of the switches that come on are only negative but not deal breakers and much easier to do then re-wiring. Now the true test is to see if the wife approves!
There is no way to avoid the âclickâ noise right? My bedroom doesnt make this noise but thats because the recessed lights are LED and the switch is a dimmerâŚso it dims on and dims off.
In the kitchen they are CFLâs installed which cannot be dimmed so a regular light switch is what i put in. In the future when these lights go out ill replace them with LEDs.
No, I donât think so. Thatâs probably the solenoid thatâs opening/closing the circuit. There is a click, but at least on my switch, itâs not very loud at all.
Well⌠I should say itâs not very loud for me. My hearing ainât so good! Last time I had it tested (more than 10 years ago) it was right at the bottom line of the range considered ânormalâ and Iâm sure itâs dropped some since then. So maybe my switches are really loud but I just canât hear them.
JD I need your help again. It seems like a recent smart things update has caused my zwave switch and virtual switch setup to cause my kitchen lights to have a mind of their own and turn on/off when they please. Really frustrating and my wifey is loosing her mind!! Have you experienced this?
