So I am lucky that almost all my switch locations have a neutral wire, however I have one location that is not.
This location has two light fixtures, with a single bulb each. Each fixture and the switch has a single 3 wire romex. My multimeter shows the white wire is hot at the switch location.
The end goal is to have an illumin color bulb in each light fixture. As such, there is a bypass installed in parallel in one of the light fixtures (one fixture has no bypass).
This all worked well for about a week. However, I woke up one morning to the red dimmer continually boot looping (cycle through the colors on LED notification strip, then go dark and then repeat).
Wondering if the bypass had gone bad, I replaced the illumin bulbs with standard incandescent. However the switch continued to boot loop, and now the incadescents would flash with each loop. I contacted support, and they suggested that I also try halogen incandescents. The behavior was the same, and support fell silent.
After waiting a bit I decided to try another red dimmer from another location. This one behaved slightly different. It would stay power on (with both incadescents and smart bulbs) as long as the level was not set to 100. If you dimmed up to full power with either, the switch would loose power and reboot, then come back on at a lower level.
I then took both red dimmers and created a test setup with a neutral wire. Both dimmers seem to function properly in this setup. Currently the switch location has no switch and is just hardwired on.
Any ideas of what could be going on here? Suggestions on what to do next?
Hey @zavex - sorry for the issues here, let’s see if we can get it squared away.
First things first, have you set the dimmer switch to Non-Neutral mode?
This can be done at the switch itself or via your hub if your hub supports it. Which hub do you use? I can give better directions if you haven’t set this mode already.
If you have set the mode to Non-Neutral, the next step would be to understand what firmware version you have.
I can help you with this as well once I know either a) when you purchased the switch or b) what hub you have so I can give you directions to find it
I think this is a good place to start - once I know those answers we can take it a step further.
@zavex this has to be related to my other thread here:
I think we are experiencing the same issue. If the wattage is high enough then the boot loop does not occur. Even if the wattage is low if the intensity value remains low too then the issue does not occur. With a neutral I have no issues. Without a neutral the dimmer falls into a reboot loop at higher percentages (and always if the intensity is set to full). I thought that it could be helped with some diode protection or isolation on the ground but that did not seem to help.
Hey @zavex – I’m super sorry, I remember reading your reply and then got distracted and then went up north to the UP where there is no service. I knew there was a thread that I needed to respond to.
Let me have the manufacturer look at these two threads and see what we can come up with.
No, but let me create a PM with you and the manufacturer so that we can push this along. They’re out until the 8th I believe for Moon Festival, but I think they’re still responding.
Just posting again since I haven’t gotten a response from support e-mail in a while. I bought a 10 pack of red dimmer switches and out of five that I’ve tried, only one has worked as expected. Three of them are stuck in a permanent boot loop regardless of load (180W of incandescent lights still causes boot loop). One of them reboots whenever the LED lights are turned off. The last one is hooked up to a florescent bulb and working fine.
@stu1811 I’ve been wondering what Smart Bulb Mode does, but for the three switches I have in boot loop I can no longer change settings since they don’t stay online long enough.
@Darklyte It may boot with an incandescent. Mine does but acts wonky. Which hub do you have? I can set params in ST and they’ll take even when the switch is rebooting. Final option is to smash the down paddle as it boots to set the light off. Final final option is to disconnect the switch and wire it up on a test bench with a neutral.
Smart bulb mode is set the load to always get power. You want this if you the illum, hue, or other smart bulb. You then setup an association between the bulb between the switch and bulb.
I use a SmartThings hub. I’ve tried getting the boot looping ones to stay powered on a heavy load, but that isn’t working.
It is absolutely Smart bulb mode. I decided to finish my 10-pack and test as many things as possible. Enabling Smart Bulb mode essentially always causes the switches to start boot looping, even on load.
@Eric_Inovelli I’m experiencing the same boot loop as others here have noticed. This is on a non-neutral Red series dimmer, with 3 12W Cree LED bulbs as the load, on firmware 1.47. Of the 15 switches I’ve installed, this is the first time I’ve seen this issue (although I’ve got a neutral pretty much everywhere else). Any ideas?
It “stops” if I set the max dim value to 85%, but this doesn’t quite work for the room. Thanks!
I have three fixtures with a similar setup to what you have described. Get the Aoetec bypass, and change to either a brighter bulb, or cooler color temp. Even with the bypass I can only get 85% out of the dimmer. Brighter, cooler bulbs were still need to compensate. Without neutral you don’t have much of an option.
