How to control lights with three separate switches?

Posted on
Sun Jan 17, 2016 10:24 pm
JonathanKing offline
Posts: 36
Joined: Dec 29, 2015

How to control lights with three separate switches?

Hello,

I have the latest Indigo and a bunch of both Insteon and ZWave devices. I have three lights on three floors of my home that has three linked switches. What is the easiest/best way to control them via Indigo? I was hoping to be able to just change one of the existing switches for a ZWave one, but am not sure the best way to wire it up.

Thanks in advance!

-jonathan

Posted on
Mon Jan 18, 2016 3:18 pm
jay (support) offline
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Location: Austin, Texas

Re: How to control lights with three separate switches?

I assume you're talking about a 4-way (3 switches controlling a single light) configuration that currently has manual switches. Unfortunately, just replacing one won't work. There are some Z-Wave switches that have companion switches that work with the existing traveler wiring. The other option would be to install Insteon SwitchLincs in each switch location and link them together.

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Fri Jan 22, 2016 9:39 pm
JonathanKing offline
Posts: 36
Joined: Dec 29, 2015

Re: How to control lights with three separate switches?

Thanks Jay. I was afraid you'd say that!

I actually have three lights being controlled together by three switches on three floors. They're all hallway lights. It's not worth it to me to replace all the manual switches at this time though.

-Jonathan

Posted on
Sat Jan 23, 2016 3:17 am
mike_c offline
Posts: 37
Joined: Oct 03, 2013

Re: How to control lights with three separate switches?

I've successfully done this with fibaro dinners (same principle works for on/off). Vesternet is a useful source of hardware as well helpful diagrams of various configurations).

http://www.vesternet.com/resources/appl ... qNDu0XfWnM

Essence is that only one of the switches does the actual control of the lights and the others support it - via any number of configurations. (Slaves as described in previous post).

I've drawn diagrams of each socket, switch inc. wires (always a good thing to do before adding any dimmers) to help me understand what SHOULD happen - makes life easier.


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Posted on
Sat Jan 23, 2016 3:21 am
mike_c offline
Posts: 37
Joined: Oct 03, 2013

Re: How to control lights with three separate switches?

To clarify my above post. I have done this where three switches control a couple of lights (hallway) so sounds very similar to requirement here.

I have only used a single dimmer unit (and not needed to install three summers). The trick is essentially to turn all the existing switches into an input to the fibraro unit and make that unit the "master"


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