Confusing wiring

2way not 2 gang and it's probably still a 1 way they just use the same molding but without the extra brass.

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Nope not enough cables for this, you would need a another triple cable with this set up.

No no change in regs it's just personal preference, I prefer to wire like this due to testing and smart home easy. But there will be just as many electricans that still use the loop in at light method. You will rarely see people use the junction box method due to needing to be able to easily expose and check it.

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Do NOT use theses!!!! :flushed:

I'm in the US so I don't know the typical wiring requirements in the UK.

Assuming brown is 1 side/leg of the mains and blue the other

I were to guess I would think the two wired stuffed in the one terminal is just an easy way to continue power to some nearby circuit.

So looking at the switch:
Power comes in on one brown wire going into the "top" terminal of the switch. Also in that same terminal is a brown wire carrying power to some other circuit.

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This is fine as long as you can prove it and go careful. The probes should not have alot of exposed metal.

Correct

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If you don't have a meter or way to identify the line in. Just remove one of the brown wires in the terminal that has two. Power it back up and see if the light works. If it does the brown wire still going to the switch it power in.
Personally if you think you have identified the power in, I would look for what isn't working to find there the follow one circuit is.

Can I assume in UK that blue is (usually) the neutral? (i.e. the side of the mains connected to ground)

I've got to ask why

Thanks @BorrisTheCat for the answers, that's cleared up a lot. To be clear, when I swap it out for a switch that doesn't require neutral, I just wire it identically to this switch? You mention wiring the two loop wires into L1 makes it easier for smart switches, so just checking this doesn't require a change in the way it's wired when I swap the switch out.

If you knew how they worked you wouldn't use them :flushed:. They are not safe and are not in the regs as a safe means of testing for power. The light up sticks are better (technically still shouldn't be used to prove that the cable is safe and dead) they don't use you as the circuit. IE you are the neutral

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Always the neutral unless marked up as brown then usually the switched live

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Nope didn't say this. Said that wiring the loop live down too the switch makes it easier to test (your working at chest hight rather than up steps over head) and it give you a neutral at the switch so gives you more options for smart homes/ devices. Smart devices WITH neutrals are better as a hole for multiple reasons, so always try and get one than one without. Devices without still need a return path (neutral) so they have to get it through the load of the device, with LEDs now this is harder as the load is so small so you get noise and lights flicking as a result.

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But yes this is correct, the 2 lives would go to the live in and the single would go to the live out.

Obviously don't do this live, test and test again before you touch anything.

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Would not most smart switches benefit from the Neutral? I don't know about the UK so this is a question not a suggestion, but would one not put the blue wire to the smart switch neutral input?

Yes

Yes this is what I said here.

But the OP was asking what to do if the dimmer comes without a option for a neutral.

You bought a WiFi β€œin wall” switch to work with Hubitat ?
Can I ask, What was the reasoning behind NOT going Zigbee or Zwave ??

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Primary reason: Wanted to give it a go, see what happens :slight_smile:

Secondary: Price - if it works then it opens up a whole new world, if it doesn't then it's not too much money wasted and I can switch back to Zigbee.

My two plugs are Innr which are Zigbee. Happy with them but Wifi is about half the price for an equivalent device. As it happens I got the wall switch to work with a bit of a workaround (not local, uses eWeLink and IFTTT) which I'll post about separately in case anyone's looking to do the same thing.

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So a general update - it works!

Couple of notes though:

  1. The two brown wires are indeed the live loop. While on a dumb switch the position doesn't matter, the smart switch uses its Common port to get its standby power. Thus, I had to swap the two wires to common and the single brown wire to L1.
  2. The 3 neutral wires kept popping out of the single neutral port on the switch when I pushed it back. I have a really shallow back box (had to get a spacer to get more room, about Β£3 from Amazon), otherwise I probably would have kept them in the connector you see in the picture and added a single wire from the other end of that to the switch. Unfortunately I didn't have the space, nor the right rated wire to hand to do that. In the end I managed it but it cost me a good 30 minutes of frustration. Each time this happened this switch would work fine, but the next switch in the loop wouldn't as its neutral wire was the one that had popped out :man_facepalming:

Anyway, after a lot of fiddling, it's working. Connected to Wifi and through the magic of IFTTT I can control it together with my Hubitat devices. Will post about that separately as I found two ways to do that, want to share the pros/cons and see if anyone's got a better way!

Its realy REALY important that this connection is safe and tight. It would be best to have it in a connecter like it was, then take a fly lead to the device as they are often not designed to take more than 1 core. If you don't do this, then there is a risk of fire AND OR blowing up devices along the line due to you having a floating neutral. It is not as simple as it just doesn't work, because it is trying to find a path and if it does thats when your have a issue.

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