Hi guys. After a year of putting off wiring the no-neutral switches because of various stability issues, I finally decided to figure out why they wouldn’t work even with the bypass.
My house has some old lighting circuits,yep I’m talking about the ancient knob-and-tube wiring.
After tinkering with various options, and even two aeotec bypasses I still couldn’t figure out why the switch was unstable, turning off at unexpected times. Switch seemed to work and stay powered when i put incandescent bulbs though, and since the issue was especially prevalent when the hue bulbs were turned off, i figured it must have been an issue with not enough current passing through the switch, so I went for a hail mary and wired not 1, not 2, but 3 aeotec bypasses in parallel with the load(fixture with 2 hue bulbs), and tada!, i finally got it working!
My celebration was shortlived when i realized I’d have to buy 3 aeotec bypasses for every non-neutral switch i had to install. That’s $45 worth of Aeotec Bypasses per fixture!
There’s gotta be an alternative bypass solution out there that allows the same current needed for the switch to operate in one unit and also doesn’t cost an additional 45 bucks per lamp!
1 month update. The 3 bypass solution did not work really.
While lights are on, as usual, there is enough current for the switch to operate normally. When it is off, it will stay powered for an hour or so, before the leds shut off and flicker momentarily every few seconds, and the switch doesn’t seem to have enough power to turn the relay on.
Not exactly sure why these bypasses aren’t working here, but cramming more of them in would be prohibitively expensive.
For now i’ve just reverted to my old solution and put a zigbee button next to the inovelli switch. It seems that at least the hue bulbs have enough power to be turned on this way, even if they do flicker for a full second when they try to turn on.(i’m guessing its one of the constant inovelli power cycles as it keeps trying to turn on when there is little to no current from the bypasses?)
I would recommend rewiring at the fixture so that you have a constant hot and a neutral going back to the switch (no load). Since you’re using hue bulbs with binding, it’s fine to constantly power the hue bulbs.
Now I don’t mean to sound so dismissive, but this isn’t really constructive advice. Having a neutral wire on the switch would obviously solve the issue but is not a solution within the constraints of the no-neutral problem.(and that would require ripping sections of wall out to install a second romex line to the light switch, hence the use of the inovelli-backed bypass)
It would be like asking advice about a car engine oil leaking, and suggesting that I strip away the whole engine and convert it into an electric car because they require no transmission oil, hence solving my oil-leaking problem.
Please note that the switch is setup already in smart mode so it is already allowing current. Perhaps that was a mistake i made when suggesting it doesn’t have the power to turn the relay off, as isn’t toggling it when in smart-mode, its always on.
That is absolutely the proper solution for your situation. I don’t think you understand what is being suggested, however.
This solution does not require ripping out sections of wall to install a second Romex. Instead, at the light box, you wire the light and the Romex going to the switch in parallel. This provides you a hot and a neutral at the switch without adding any additional wiring.
The only downside is that your bulb sockets are now constantly powered. Should you need to change bulbs, you will need to cut power at the breaker.
Ah that explains it a little better. I see what you are saying now. (I thought you were suggesting i run a new neutral line to the switch.)
So your suggestion would indeed work if I had conventional romex in there, but unfortunately for me, its not that simple. The existing lighting lines in there aren’t actually romex. It is very old wire installation from the times of tube-and-knob wiring. There is only 1 wire between the light and the switch.
In other words, The fixture itself receives the hot wire, and the aforementioned second wire goes to the switch. The switch receives the wire from the fixture, and has a wire that merges to neutral somewhere in the walls. So neither the fixture NOR the switch has access to both neutral and hot wires.
Which is why I needed to resort to a bypass solution.
From what I can tell, the wiring diagram would be he same, as the current still has through go through the fixture and bypass in parallel and the switch is in series with all that fixture wiring. Whatever current goes through the bypass is supposed to be able to supply the switch with enough power to operate.
Yep, with knob and tube you may be limited. This should be line fed to the switch, which makes the single conductor between the switch and the light the switched hot.
If you can get the same hot to the light (not sure what access to the light box is), you can use the single conductor between the switch and the box to send the neutral to the switch. Otherwise, as you probably already know, you’re hosed.
