What's up guys it's Chris Majestic with Majestechs.
I get a lot of questions about
lighting when you're dealing with things
like the smartthings hub where you want
to deal with automation so today I'm
going to try to cover some beginner
intermediate and advanced lighting
options so stay tuned
So I'm going to start with a disclaimer
that I am NOT an electrician I'm just
giving you tips and advice but you can
use this video as a general guide. Now as
I mentioned in my Home Automation Guide
and you can go back and watch that if
you haven't already that's got a lot of
good info in it especially about
lighting but I did kind of touch on some
options that you have when it comes to
z-wave or even zigbee lighting. So when
it comes to lighting you really have
four major options and i'm going to rank
these in order of difficulty so let's
get started with the easiest option and
that's going to be the connected bulbs
these are really really simple to work
with are you going to do is replace your
light bulb with it
pair it with your hub and then you're
just going to control it with the hub
like using your phone or your voice if
you have a Alexa with SmartThings or
something like that
however a major downside to using bulbs
is that if somebody hits the light
switch you're going to lose power to
your bulb and you can't connect to it to
control it now you in that situation
that's when you kind of have to be
creative and maybe put like a lock on
the switch or something like that or you
just use a separate switch like maybe
just a push-button you get from the
store or you could just tell people in
your house to not turn the light off but
that's a pretty basic setup very simple
to understand and easy to use and
speaking of bulbs, another popular
option is Philips hue so if you're
interested in buying philips hue bulbs
are going to need a Phillips hue bridge
so the balls actually connect directly
to the bridge they don't connect
directly to SmartThings or any other
smart hub however smart hubs like SmartThings
and Wink do connect to the
philips hue bridge and unfortunately
you're still going to have the issue
with the light switches if you turn your
light switch off where the bulb is plugged in,
you're not going to be able to
connect to the bulb but the big advantage
to Phillips who is that you get a lot
of different color options so you can
set different moods and scenes and
things like that with your bulbs so if
you're really interested in Phillips Hue
it does work really well with the Smart
Hub like
smartthings the second option is just as
easy which is to buy an actual plug-in
module, which is just going to be an
outlet that you're gonna plug into your
existing wall outlet. So in the case of
lighting you're just going to plug your
lamp into it and they actually do sell
dimmable modules that you can plug a
lamp into that will actually dim the
light using the outlet so moving on
to some more intermediate options and
that's going to be wall switches so when
it comes to z-wave wall switches you
have a lot of different options with
those because so many different
companies make light switches you can
have an on/off switch or you can have a
z-wave dimmer it's up to you
the very first thing you need to
consider is whether or not you have a
neutral wire in the box and the neutral
wire is usually going to be a white wire
or bundle of wires in the back of the
box and you need those because the
switch is going to be powered on all the
time now there are some z-wave switches
out there that don't require a neutral
wire but i don't really recommend it
because most of them don't work with LED
bulbs and if you're in that situation we
don't have a neutral wire and you can
get kind of creative using some smart
bulbs along with outlets so obviously
when it comes to installing light
switches you're going to have to do an
actual install so another thing to
consider when you're going to install
these light switches is the amperage on
the switch that you're going to buy so
you have to make sure that the load of
your lights in the room where you're
putting this which is not going to
exceed the amperage or the wattage of
that switch so if you're ready to do one
of these installs if you've never done
it before i'll show you the tools that i
use to get these done. The very first
thing in one of the most important tools
is going to be a voltage tester so the
voltage tester is going to be used for
two different things one is going to be
able to tell you which wires are powered
and the other thing is gonna be used for
is to keep you from being shocked
so when you turn the power off you can
test the wires to make sure there's no
voltage running through so you don't
actually get shocked or worse even
killed
you're also going to need a flathead
screwdriver phillips screwdriver
I'm a small flat-head screwdriver which
would be used to remove existing wires
out of the back of a switch if you need to.
Wire nuts, some extra wire, pliers,
wire strippers, painters tape, a new wall
plate if you need one and a voltmeter
another thing to keep in mind if you're
going to be replacing a switch with a Z-wave
switch is making sure that you're
not putting a dimmer
on a ceiling fan. So there are a lot of situations
where you have a dual gang box. One
switch controls a light and the other
switch controls the fan motor. You
definitely want to make sure that the
switch you're buying for the fan is an on/off
switch you will destroy the motor if you
try to use in dimming switch on it. So the
very first situation i want to cover
when replacing switches is going to be a
single-pole switch installation and that
just simply means that you have a very
basic light switch that's just
controlling a set of lights or a single
light in that case you don't have two or
more light switches that are controlling
that light there's only one light switch
now if you do have two or three light
switches that are controlling that
source that's going to be a 3-way or
4-way situation and i'll get to that
a little bit later so the very first
thing you want to do is shut your power
off go ahead and pull the switch out so
you can get access to the wires and then
you want to determine which wires are
what
so the two wires that are kind of
difficult to distinguish when you're
doing this for the first time is the
line and the load wires and the load
wires basically going to be the wire
that's going to the light and the line
wire is going to be also known as the
hot wire or the wire that's hot whenever
the switch has power
so that's not going to be a switched wire
it's just always going to be hot at all times
so once you pull the wall switch out you
can turn the power back on and very very
carefully because you're dealing with
live wires very carefully test to see
which wires are on and which wires are
off when you flip the switch so when the
switch is off you'll have one wire
that's going to be hot that should be
your line wire and when you flip the
switch on you'll see that both wires or
hot the wire that's which is going to be
your load wire so that's the wire that's
going to the light so that's how you
determine which one is which.
The other wire you're going to need is the
neutral wire as i mentioned which is
going to be a bundle of wires in the
back of your box and then the last wire
you need is the ground wire which is
usually just going to be connected with
a bare copper wire onto your existing
switch already so you're just going to
move these wires over to your new switch
another option you have when you're
doing a single-pole installation is a
microswitch now these are a little bit
more difficult to understand because
it's not as straightforward as wiring up
a regular light switch but a microswitch
is basically going to sit in between the
load coming from the switch that you
have there and
going to the light so with a microswitch
is going to share the hot wire that the
switch is already using so in that case
you'll likely need to add an additional
wire so that the line is being shared by
the original switch and the microswitch
you're also going to add a neutral wire
that's going to wire to the existing
neutral wires that you have in there then
you're going to take the load wire
that's going to your existing switch
move that over to the microswitch and
then on the microswitch you'll have an
aux wire that aux wire is going to
replace where the load wire was on the
original switch so this is a pretty
basic setup for the most part once you
get a grasp of how it works so micro
switches are going to work really well
if you just want to keep your existing
wall plate and you don't want to
actually change the look of anything
alright so now onto some advanced
lighting now advanced lighting is going
to consist of 3-way and 4-way
lighting situations. So as I mentioned
earlier that's gonna be when you have
two or three light switches that are
controlling one light if you have like
four light switches or more it's going
to pretty much be the same situation as
far as wiring goes for the most part now
3 & 4 Way lighting is always difficult
for people to understand and that's just
because there are several different ways
that you can wire 3-way switch so I'm
actually going to cover two of the most
common ways that it's done so of yours
is different hopefully it wouldn't be
that much different it will give you a
general understanding of how it works
and the first thing you need to keep in
mind when you're going to wire up a
switch into a 3-way situation is
that any z-wave switch is going to
require line, neutral, and load to all be
in the same box now unfortunately most
of the 3-way setups that i see do
not have all three of these wires in one
box but there are ways around it now you
may get lucky if you have a two-gang box
and that's because usually a two-gang
box are going to find a line wire
because the other switch that's in the
box with that switch is probably getting
line so you can use that line to power
the microswitch so let's start with one
of the most common 3-way setups so
you're going to have line neutral and
ground coming into box 1 and then you're
going to have two traveler wires which are
going to be connected to switch 2 so
you're going to have a total of five
wires there so on the other end you have
the 2 traveler wires coming from switch 1. You're going to have your load which
is connected to the light
you're going to have
you're neutral in the back of the box
and your ground wire is going to be
connected to that switch as well now in
this situation notice the line and the
load are in two different boxes now the
easiest way to tackle this situation is
going to be to buy a regular z-wave
switch and to buy an accessory z-wave
switch so in this situation switch 1 is
where you're going to wire the accessory
switch so the way that an accessory
switch works if you haven't already seen
the home automation guide is that it
doesn't actually carry a load, you're just
giving it power so what you're going to
do in box 1 is disconnected all the
wires from the existing switch that you
have there you're going to take the line
wire and the red traveler wire that's
going to switch 2 and tie those
together with a wire nut you're going to
take the black wire that's going between
both switches and cap it off on both
ends because we're not going to use it
then you're gonna take your accessory
switch, wire that into the neutral also
wire that into the line wire and then
wire it into the ground wire as well now
you can go to box 2 and box 2 is where
you're wiring the regular z-wave switch
which is going to require four wires so
on box 2 your going to take the red
wire that's going to be your line wire
so you're going to connect that to line
on the new z-wave switch you're going to
take the black wire if you haven't
already go ahead and cap that off you're
going to take the load wire that's
coming from the light connect that to
your load that you're gonna take the
neutral wire connect that and also
connect a ground wire so once you have
everything all wired up you can turn the
power back on and you're going to test
to make sure that turning the light
switch ON switch 2 is actually turning
the light on and off and then you can
also take this time to pair both of
the switches with your hub once both of
the switches are added you have two
different options when it comes to
linking these switches together one
option is to use a minimote it's made
by Aeon Labs that's the most common way
to do this and the process for linking
them together is really really simple
you're just gonna hit the button on the
remote that's going to link these
devices together and you're going to go
to the regular easy way switch double
tap that then go to the accessory
switch and Double Tap that once you do
that that's done they're going to be
associated with each other so that way
they're linked up together so that when
one switch is off the other one knows that it's off and
vice versa and if your
regular switch is a dimmer you
and actually use the accessory switch to
dim the other light as well so they link
up perfectly together this way the other
alternative if you don't have a
minimote or you just need to get something
up and running in the meantime is to
actually let smartthings do the
association for you and it's not going
to do a z-wave association but the way
it works is you can simply just go into
smart lighting and that's going to allow
you to just go into the app and say hey
when I turn the accessory switch on,
turn the main switch on as well as
turning it off and that's gonna associate
both of them together that way when
one's off the other is off vice versa
however there's no way to get the
accessory switch to actually dim the
other switch if it's a dimmer but it
does work fairly well letting
smartthings do it for you know there's
gonna be a slightly longer delay because
you're actually letting the hub do it so
it's got to talk to the hub and the hub has to
tell it what to do is not going to be as
fast as a direct z-wave association so
that was a very first scenario when it
comes to 3-way lighting which is one
of the most common now that is probably
the worst type of situation that you can
be in just because you don't have all
three wires that you need in the same
box but using z way switch along with an
accessory or what is also known as an
add-on switch is the best way to do it
and the second situation that I want to
talk about is when you actually do have
line wires in both boxes so that means in
one box you have line load and neutral
and in the other box you have line and
neutral because you don't need load in
both boxes if that's the case you can
actually use a microswitch in this
situation so the way that you're going
to wire the microswitch here is very
similar to the way that you are into a
single pole light switch
now once you know which side has the
load you can go ahead and close up the
other side because we're not going to
use it
we're going to actually leave the
traveler wires and everything in place
like they are the only thing we're going
to do in the box where the switch is it
has the load is simply connect it just
like we connected it to a single pole
light switch so all you're going to do is
run a wire for line to your microswitch
run your wire for your neutral and then
you're going to take the load wire off
of the existing 3-way and connect
that into the load terminal on your micro
switch and then you're going to take the
aux wire and run at to where the
load wire was on the original 3-way
switch now you need to follow the
directions that you have for your micro
switch to ensure that you're actually
wiring that wire into the right terminal
because it may be different from some
microswitches especially one like a Aeon Labs
you definitely want to double-check
your wiring. Now in Scenario 2 you can
still use a regular z way switch and an
accessory switch is going to work the
exact same way now GE does sell an add-on
switch where you can actually use the
traveler wires
I've never actually done this just
because I prefer having it be done
wireless to Z Wave just using a regular
accessory switch and having that switch
pair to the other switch now these
companies do make double microswitches
which is basically a micro switch that
allows you to control two separate loads
with one switch so in that case you're
really just gonna wire it up the same
way the only difference is that you're
going to have two aux wires and two load
wires so you just have to make sure that
they're hooked up the right way and that
will work just fine now we're using some
of these different light switches and
these other devices like micro switches
and things like that the actual device
type does not work well natively with
smartthings if you're using smartthings
however there are a lot of cool
people on the forums that have actually
created device types for these switches
to allow them to work properly now we'll
do a separate video on how you add a
custom device type and how you use
virtual switches to control a double
switch or how you just simply control a
microswitch so stay tuned for that video
Alright guys is going to be it for this
video thanks for watching if you made it
this far I appreciate it i know it was a
long video go ahead and hit that thumbs
up button for me if you found it helpful
post your comments and your questions in the
comments section as always I'll respond
to your questions and i'll see you guys
in the next video