[antgenn]

Originally Posted by DETRoadster

There's a release lever? I guess I didnt look that close. I just cursed it and snipped it off.

You most probably had a push in connector. That one is permanent, no lever.

[M_Six]

Here's the way the 3-way switches in my house are wired (mostly). The wiring looks the same as in the Wemo switch install directions, except for the colors. There is a Romex coming into the box with black, red, white, and the ground. Then there's one going out to the light that just has white, black, and ground. The part that gets me is that the pair twisted in the wire nut is a black from the supply Romex and a white from the light Romex. Can I assume that is my neutral bundle? If I ignore the color differences, installing the Wemo switch would be easy. But the circuit breaker box is a long way from the switch. If I screw this up and restore power and the whole thing starts to sizzle, I have a long run back to the circuit breaker.

[2000cs]

Originally Posted by M_Six

Here's the way the 3-way switches in my house are wired (mostly). The wiring looks the same as in the Wemo switch install directions, except for the colors. There is a Romex coming into the box with black, red, white, and the ground. Then there's one going out to the light that just has white, black, and ground. The part that gets me is that the pair twisted in the wire nut is a black from the supply Romex and a white from the light Romex. Can I assume that is my neutral bundle? If I ignore the color differences, installing the Wemo switch would be easy. But the circuit breaker box is a long way from the switch. If I screw this up and restore power and the whole thing starts to sizzle, I have a long run back to the circuit breaker.

I think that is what it SHOULD be, but to be sure you have to put a tester on it, or flip the breaker and do a continuity test to the breaker box (neutral in this case)

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by 2000cs

I think that is what it SHOULD be, but to be sure you have to put a tester on it, or flip the breaker and do a continuity test to the breaker box (neutral in this case)

I did check. If the lights are on, the neutral wires are hot. If the lights are off only one wire on the switch is hot depending on the position of the other switch. All of which makes sense.

[2000cs]

Originally Posted by M_Six

I did check. If the lights are on, the neutral wires are hot. If the lights are off only one wire on the switch is hot depending on the position of the other switch. All of which makes sense.

The bundle in your pic should be the neutrals, but I’ve seen wiring done wrong often enough to still test. I mean, I’ve seen the neutrals run through the switch and the hots connected, I guess you’d call that backwards wiring. Since it is a circuit, that would still switch, but it could be dangerous and might ruin something sensitive like an electronic switch.

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by 2000cs

The bundle in your pic should be the neutrals, but I’ve seen wiring done wrong often enough to still test. I mean, I’ve seen the neutrals run through the switch and the hots connected, I guess you’d call that backwards wiring. Since it is a circuit, that would still switch, but it could be dangerous and might ruin something sensitive like an electronic switch.

There's an identical setup up stairs and I have the pros coming tomorrow to fix some switches in my garage, so I'll wait and show them the switch upstairs. If they can install my Wemo switch there, I'll just duplicate what they do with the other similarly wired switches. Wemo is very clear that you have to have a neutral to use their switches, so I don't want to rush it and blow up a switch.

Thanks for the replies. I'll update tomorrow after the pros leave.

[vreihen16]

FYI - smart switches only need the neutral at the switch for their minuscule power draw to power the smarts. Some dimmer devices skip the neutral requirement by leaking the smarts "neutral" into the load. If it's an incandescent bulb, you won't even notice. If it's an LED, the HA forums are full of posts about glowing bulbs and adding bypass gizmos to sink that parasitic power at the fixture.....

[M_Six]

Soooo glad I waited for the pros. I'd have blown up my switches. One 3-way setup needed a bunch of rewiring to separate the two different lights. One 3-way circuit and one 4-way circuit (one in each hallway) have some funky setup where there are 5 wires, but no neutrals. He said the neutrals were most likely grouped in a junction box above the ceiling. With no neutrals, those switches can't be replaced with the Wemo switches. No biggie. I can work around that. But with three switches they replaced and the one they isolated, I can now control all my outside lights and my garage overhead lights through HomeKit, so I'm happy.

Got a couple of Wemo 3-way switches I can't use now, but maybe I can still return them.

[M_Six]

3-way switch question. Philips Hue makes wifi switches that interact directly with the bulb. In order to ensure the bulb always has power, they direct you to disconnect the two wires on a single pole switch and wire nut them together. Then you either attach the Hue wall module to the switch or, if you're using a Lutron Aurora dimmer button, just put a plate over the former switch and attach the button to the plate. That all makes sense and I've done that.

But for 3-way switches, their directions say to take the 3 wires off one of the switches and wire them together. So the load and two traveler wires are all connected. From what I know about 3-way switches, that would supply power to the bulb no matter what position the other switch was in, correct?

If you wanted to replace both switches with blank plates, I would think you could put the switches in a position where the light was on, then figure out which two wires in each switch were hot and wire nut them together (after flipping the breaker, of course), then leave the remaining cold wire in each switch solo with a wire nut on the end. Is that true?