Complicated 3-way with 4 wires between switch boxes being replaced with White and Aux

Hi,

I have a slightly complicated setup I’m trying to figure out before I dive in and wire things up. I have a 3-way dumb switch setup that I want to replace with an Innovelli White switch and an Innovelli Aux. Things are made a bit more complicated because one of the switches is in a 3-gang with two other switches. There are also 4 wires between the two switch boxes from what I can tell. It’s all messing with my head a bit.

In the diagram below, I want to replace the blue switches.

haven’t 100% confirmed that the white, blue, red, and white bundle does in fact connect the two boxes, but I would assume so since they all leave one box through a single hole and arrive at the other one through a single hole.

I haven’t confirmed where the lights actually go to. I would assume either the top box or a mix between the top box and the top switch of the bottom box.

I’m not quite sure how to get started.

Thanks for any advice!

Your drawing makes sense. What’s confusing you is that 4th conductor. That’s because the single gang box is feeding power to the three gang box downstream. A lot of times this is done with a separate 2-wire Romex, but in your case, presuming you have Romex, it looks like a 4-conductor, where the 4th conductor is blue.

Based on your drawing, it looks like power is coming into the single gang box via the middle 2-wire. The hot is sent to the other box over the black and the neutral is sent to the other box over the white. For your 3-way leg in the three gang box, the hot is connected to the common terminal (should be the black screw), leaving the red and blue as travelers back to the single gang box.

In the single gang box, the red and blue travelers are connected to the brass screws. The top 2-wire is going to the light, so the black from that 2-wire is connected to the common (black) screw on the switch. The white of that same 2-wire is connected to the neutral bundle there.

So that’s what it look like you have. Post back if you need help translating to Inovelli wiring.

Thanks. That sounds like roughly what I thought was going on.

Okay, in terms of wiring it up, I guess I have my choice of where to put which kind of switch because I have line-neutral in both boxes. So I’m thinking:

  • Put the White in the 3-gang because it’s in closer radio proximity to my HomeKit hub
  • Don’t overthink the rest, just go off the names.

That means in the one-gang:

  • White to neutral on the aux switch
  • Red to traveler on the aux switch
  • Connect black from the light (formerly common terminal of switch) to the blue wire

And in the three-gang:

  • Blue to load on White switch
  • Black to line on White switch
  • Red to traveler on White switch
  • White to neutral on White switch

Yep, based on my description of what the drawing appears to be, that will work. At a minimum however, test the two wire in the single gang box with the black disconnected to make sure it is truly the incoming hot.

Thank you! Got it working on the first try!

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