I have a house with many switches in various rooms controlling lots of recessed lights. Most of the sets of lights are controlled by three to four switches (mostly 4). I naively bought a GE 3 way dimmer switch set thinking that it would be an easy installation. Now I realize that I need at least one more GE auxiliary switch to make any of these circuits work. For the four switch circuit, do I need two more GE aux switches? In other words, do all of the native switches need to be replaced…either by the GE dimmer or auxiliary switches? This is going to get expensive!!! :o What are my options? What about not dimming the lights…can I use just auxiliary switches then? And do I need to also replace all of them?
Please advise! Thanks much in advance.
You will need one GE 3 way “master”, and as many Aux switches as you have in your 3 or 4 way circuits. Yeah, it can get expensive. Which is why I’m switching over slowly to Zwave controlled lighting. The dimmer switches are a little cheaper than the On/Off ones, which is also a bummer as I have CF’s in all my fixtures. The deal is that the “Master” switch has to be able to report the status of the load in the circuit, as well as communicate with the Aux switches to receive On/Off commands.
As far as using the Aux switches as regular 1 way switches, I’m not sure. But I don’t believe they will work for the purpose.
Other than the neato factor, I don’t NEED to have all my lights go on and off at my every whim, so I use more lamp modules for useful scenes. Lights after dark, lights when we unlock the door, turn off cell phone chargers during the day… etc.
Yes, all the switches in a given n-way switch circuit need to be changed at the same time. The Z-wave switches do not work like regular n-way switches. In a normal n-way switch configuration 2 (or more) traveler wires pass the current between all the switches, eventually getting to the load. So all the auxiliary switches switch current, and the load can be connected to any of them. In the Z-wave configuration only the master switch actually switches the current to the load; the auxiliary switches simply signal the master switch to turn the load on or off. So you cannot mix a Z-wave master with a normal auxiliary switch in an n-way circuit.
One solution that MIGHT be a little cheaper for 4-way (or more) circuits would be the Leviton Vizia RF+ switches. While the master switch is expensive the auxiliary switches are cheap, less than $10 if I remember correctly.
Yes, it gets expensive, so when I got into Z-wave a few months back I was going to spread my purchases out over time to lessen the pain. However, once I got the system up and running the convenience (and fun) of it overcame my budget constraints so I bit the bullet and went all in. I’ve now got about 30 devices on my system. Really hurt the wallet but I’m glad I did it.
I hope this helps.
You might post a request to the forum for additional Aux switches… Many of us bought the GE switches when RadioShack was dumping them and got the kit when we only needed the main switch and therfore have aux switches lying around… I unfortunately just cleaned my garage so at the moment dont have any… :-[