I understand these probably are not meant for outdoor use. But how would they be in a bathroom? My concern here is about humidity/steam from the shower? Is anyone using one in that kind of situation. I have one in a toilet room that controls the light and the exhaust fan, but that’s a good distance away from the shower and probably doesn’t get as much humidity as the other places I am thinking about installing them.
Ok, I bit the bullet today and installed two of these. One in our half bath downstairs and the other in the shower room upstairs. This 2 relay switch allows you to control two devices separately. It uses your existing wall switches. Installation was remarkably easy.
Pros:
Installation was pretty easy
Two relays means it will control two different loads or lights.
Synchs with Wink quickly and easily
Since Wink sees it, HA see’s it after a restart as a simple switch.
Cons:
There is barely enough room in a dual gang box for one of these, two wall switches, and the wiring required for both, especially if you have big hands.
They should include a couple of wire nuts.
The wiring diagram does require a little puzzling over to install it, but once you get it, it’s easy.
There is that annoying third switch that shows up in wink that I have no idea what to do with.
Installation:
Requires:
1 Vision IN Wall Z-Wave Micro Switch
2 wire nuts (maybe depends on the wiring in your box)
1 flat head screwdriver (to remove faceplate) Why do they make those flathead instead of phillips
1 phillips head screwdriver to unscrew wires from existing switches.
pair of wire cutters to trim excess wire on existing wires if needed
pair of pliers to straighten wire if needed.
pocket knife or wire stripper if you need to use on existing wiring.
General Steps.
This is a general outline of what I did. If you are not comfortable with electricity, get an electrician to do this. ALWAYS turn off circuit breakers before working with electricity.
Turn off correct circuit breaker.
Remove faceplate
Test and verify that power is off to switch box.
Remove switches, from box, leaving wires attached.
Attach neutral (white wire on mine) from micro switch to neutral bundle in box
Attach line (black wire on mine) to the line bundle in the box.
Remove load wire from switch A (you decide which one is A and which one is B it doesn’t matter, just stay consistent.
Attach appropriate wire to the load screw on the wall switch you are working with.
Using a wire nut, attach the load wire for relay A to the load wire you disconnected from the switch.
repeat 7-9 for switch B.
cram everything in to the box being careful not to let the safety ground touch any exposed wires on the switches. Some people will tell you to put a piece of black electrical tape over the screws on the switches and wrap it around any exposed wire. That’s probably a good idea, I just wasn’t taught that way so I’ve never done it that way.
turn the circuit breaker back on
test manual operation of switches
pair switches.
go Automate.
Use Case :
I have mine hooked up to the bathroom light and the exhaust fan. I’ve tried a cousin of this item that wouldn’t take the exhaust fan without clicking and making all sorts of noise. While this unit is not advertised for the exhaust fan, it does seem to work well for that case. I use wink as my primary connection point for all of my zwave devices. The discovery with wink was as easy as telling wink to look for a new device, flip the wall switch two or three times, and wait a couple of seconds. Once it found one of the relays, it automatically added the other. Like many other of these devices there is a third device that shows up. I just name it “half bath unknown” instead of “half bath light” or “half bath fan” and then I know to ignore it. I have my automation setup so that if both the fan and the light are on, do nothing. If the light is off, only allow the fan to run for 5 minutes. So if someone makes a stink in the potty, when they leave, if they turn off the light, the fan will continue to run for an additional 5 minutes. This hopefully will take care of my son leaving the fan running all day while my wife and I are at work.
