Hello everyone! Newbie here trying to figure how to make my setup work with the new Red VZW31-SN. I’m replacing my existing dimmer, its an upstairs downstairs situation which controls the lights in the stairway.
My existing dimmer is upstairs, which I have verified is the companion of the 3-way switch. The switch downstairs has the 120V line and the two traveler lines going upstairs dimmer. Is there a way to have the Red Switch installed upstairs without the power being cut from the downstairs switch? Initially I thought the neutral wire would five the switch some kind of juice to keep it powered on, but if I toggle the downstairs switch, it cuts power completely to the red switch.
Take a look at the Multi-Way (3-Way) + Smart Switch x2 Diagrams (from the bottom of this link). Your second smart switch will only be connected to line/neutral and then you will use Z-Wave associations or scene controls in your hub to link them together.
As an alternative, you may be able to do it with an Aux switch and the dimmer if you don’t want to use two dimmers.
It sounds as if you have a line and load in separate boxes, based upon your description of the downstairs box having a line and two travelers and a neutral going upstairs. If that is the case, the load is in the upstairs box.
So if that is the configuration, you can put the Aux downstairs and the dimmer upstairs. This is a wired solution, so no binding between the two switches is required.
I got an Aux switch and wired per the diagram. The dimmer works, but I’m not getting any functionality on the Aux switch. I configured parameter 22 on the dimmer to Multi-way switch with Aux. Is there something else I’m missing?
