I had an older switch fail and got a great deal on a bunch of ZW4009 switches. ($10 each!) The old switch required slightly different wiring than a traditional 3/way but you just had to hook the traveler to a regular switch that ran to a neutral. (No power needed).
The GE says it needs a special "add on $witch" which I think is a silly money grab. Does anyone know what signal the GE's traveler is looking for to toggle the switch? Is it a switched neutral connection or a low voltage signal of some sort?
Traveler is actually 120VAC so not low voltage. Aux switches are very useful for dimmers where they can control the dim level just like the master smart switch.
I don't think you can really call the traveler "120V" when the add on switch (non dimmer) is connecting the traveler to neutral through either a 180K Ω resistor (triggered up) and 91K Ω (triggered down).
Going to do some experiments to see if I can make some generic switch an "add on" by adding a resistor.
(It's just silly that we have to go to this point.)
Weird. Really weird. The diode in the add on is biased so it allows current from the neutral to the traveler towards the main switch. That makes it weirder. Can't think of why they would do what is basically logic with line current.
I like the $10 ea volume price for the main switch but when I see dumb unnecessary things in the design it makes me want to throttle a designer.
@gamblehomesec not sure what model you have but @velvetfoot just posted this and I wasn’t aware GE/Jasco now supports dumb 3ways with their smart switches:
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