Spectacular No Neutral Wire

Some dimmable smart switches can be fitted with no neutral wire.

No neutral wire. Option 2 smart switches that don t require a neutral wire. What s crucial here is the dimming functionality. Either way running a new wire inside the walls and ceilings of your home may be too much trouble.

They will usually be colored one black and one white potentially with black stripe. The flow of power is not enough to activate the light bulb but it provides enough power to keep the switch. The key is the dimming feature which turns the flow of power between the light and the switch down to a slight trickle.

If there is no neutral wire in the switch then the circuit is only completed when the switch is turned on and once the switch is turned off the circuit becomes incomplete. While this power will not be sufficient to activate the bulb it will ensure the switch continues to communicate with the home hub. The third wire should be the ground wire and is usually colored green or bare wire.

So the neutral wire is an essential part of a smart switch. There are different types of smart switches that don t require a neutral wire which can be also used for the same purpose but most of the smart switches available today require a neutral wire for their operation. There are dimmable smart switches on the market that can be installed without a neutral wire.

This reduces the flow of power from your light to your switch to a trickle. A switch box with no neutral loop will usually only have three wires see image below.