Replacing old light-switch with remote

Question

I'm trying to relocate a wall light switch. I bought a nice RF module which wants to connect to Neutral and Hot but my outlet seems to have a red and a black going to the old switch. It looks like there may be neutral wires which are not in use.

You can see the red and black running to the old switch on the bottom of the image.

What do I do?

Neutrals are in use for the circuit, but switches only need to break/use hot wire to work. — crip659, Mar 20 '22 at 23:34
@crip659 So cap the red, split the neutral and use the neutral and the black — Ram, Mar 20 '22 at 23:42
Would make sure there is wire nuts under all that tape on the white and black wires. — crip659, Mar 20 '22 at 23:45
Thought that box was for switch, if that is an outlet box it is quite weird. Add pictures of how the outlet is wired to your question. — crip659, Mar 20 '22 at 23:49
That's the box for the switch @crip659 . I am not following you. — Ram, Mar 20 '22 at 23:55
Does that switch control a light or an outlet(with a light plugged in)? — crip659, Mar 21 '22 at 00:10
@crip659 if you look closely, you can see the rocker for the Decora switch in the first pic. — FreeMan, Mar 21 '22 at 14:06

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 21 '22 at 01:09

5

Connect the new switch where the hot is black, lamp side is Red and the neutral goes to the white. Be sure the two black wires are under the screw or have a wire nut to connect them. It appears it is fed with two wires, then continued on to the next location with the light circuit added as the red. At that point white will be neutral, black will be hot and red will be the switch leg.

edited Mar 21 '22 at 01:09

manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact

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answered Mar 21 '22 at 00:47

Gil

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score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 21 '22 at 02:28

OK, so your box has a red-black-white /3 cable, and a /2 cable. The whites are joined with a hokey splice. The blacks, plus a black pigtail to the switch, are joined with a hokey splice. It's definitely been "amateur hour" in there.

Well, you can see how the blacks have been pigtailed to the switch. Do the same thing to the neutrals, *except use a proper splicing technique for Pete's sake, like Wago Lever-nuts or at least a wire nut. Black and white provide always-hot and neutral to your smart switch.

The red wire is "hot when the lamp is desired to be on". Some sort of switching device needs to connect that to black at those times.

I don't know how your lamp is supposed to get turned on and off, but assuming the module controls the lamp, it will need the red wire for that.

Given the amateur hour work in the box, don't even assume black is always-hot, red is switched and white is neutral. Use a contactless circuit tester to verify any assumptions. Also replace all of the splices with Wago connectors as suggested, even if they are expensive! — Mark Lakata, Mar 21 '22 at 18:59

Replacing old light-switch with remote

2 Answers2