I am looking for a smart solution to add dimming capabilities to our foyer lights that can be controlled by 3 on-off switches. Here are how they are wired, based on (somewhat extensive) tinkering with a multimeter. Overall, there seems to be a first switch that takes the live wire, and then traveler wires are used to transfer that live (based on switch position) to the downstream switches. I am almost certain that I have the neutral wire after the bulbs available in the gangbox of that last switch.
I prefer a smart dimmer relay over a switch because this way, I get to keep the existing look of the switch (I don’t care much for the “dimmer” functionality on the switch itself, but on/off should work). If I do have to go with a switch, I would ideally just try to replace the middle switch because it’s the only switch in its box, and then it can look a little different I guess.
So, what are my options? So far, I have tinkered in trying to get a Shelly Dimmer 2 working but with no luck. For additional reference info on my smart home - I am in the US, I use Home Assistant and have both Z-wave and Zigbee environments running.
What switch look are you trying to preserve?
What you have diagrammed is called a 4-way switch. There used to be a Z-Wave dimming microswitch that could be controlled with standard toggle On/Off switches. They may still be available, but I don’t have that information. But, the dimming behavior of these microdimmers was not intuitive and I never cared for them. You used to have to flip the toggle switch On, and it would ramp up until you flipped the Switch Off again. To turn the light Off, you had to ramp it up past 100%, where it would then shut off.
There are a few modern day Z-Wave dimmers that are capable of 4-way installations.
There is also the option to use any Z-Wave dimmer and two additional wireless scene controller switches. These can be wired, for power, or battery operated. They are Grouped with the main dimmer and then any of the three switches can turn the light On/Off or dim it Up/Down. For example, 1 GoControl D500Z5-1 Dimmer and 2 GoControl WD00Z5-1 Scene controller switches.
You would need to reconfigure the current wiring, but you already have everything you need in the walls/boxes. Here’s a wiring diagram.
Thank you! I will look into these. I was kind of hoping I wouldn’t need to change switches, but I just have to swallow that pill