Sunday, May 31, 2020

My Smart Home


I may have mentioned before that I love to use “to-do” lists to keep me focused  on the important jobs that need to be done. They allow me to prioritize what  I do and help prevent me from getting side tracked. Today was a pretty productive day but at some point in the mid-afternoon I got to a job where I was to install a smart dimmer switch in our family room. There were actually three similar jobs, the smart switch, a Ring doorbell and replace a light fixture in my closet. These jobs have been on my list for months because I keep bumping them thinking that I can do these kinds of things in the evening after dark. I try and do physical work in the morning so I’m not too tired later in the day. These other jobs I could do when I’m tired.
 

So I got around to my smart switch around the mid-afternoon and had the switch wired up in about 15 minutes. I went to fire it up and it didn’t work. I got checking things out and realized that my dining room light and my kitchen light (both smart switches) didn’t work either. Well if working on one switch messed up other switches then it must have been that power to those lights came through the switch I just worked on. I double checked and I had it wired correctly so then I checked to see if I had power. Since the neutral wires had a wire nut on them I just checked the hot wire and sure enough, there was power.

I then tore apart the dining room and kitchen switches. That was a nightmare because they were two fat switches packed into a double box with a mess of wires going through it. It is a very tight fit. So I pulled those switches out and they also had power. Very confusing. I then disconnected the switches and remove them so all I have is bare wires. No fancy electronics with WiFi radios in them, just bare wires. The hot wire had power but when I touched them to the switch wire nothing happened. It didn’t seem possible.


It was then that I noticed that the lights in the computer room weren’t working either. It was on a dimmer switch so I started getting worried. The four switches that didn’t work were all switches with fancy electronics. Was it possible that I had created voltage spike and had fried all the electronics. That thought was compounded when I realized that a lamp in the front room (on a smart plug) didn’t work either.


As I thought it all out I realized that couldn’t be the problem because I had removed the kitchen and dining room switches altogether. No electronics.
After scratching my head for a while I decided to go back to the source of the problem, my new dimmer switch. I remove it entirely and looked at the wires I had left. I had a hot wire coming in and a hot wire going out. The two neutral wires for those hot wires and then I had a wire going to the light. I checked power in all the wires and confirmed that the hot wire was hot and I connected it to the wire leaving the plug for the kitchen etc. It had to take the power to the kitchen but nothing. I then connected the light to the hot wire and it worked so that was progress.

It was so confusing that I was considering calling an electrician but this wasn’t rocket science and I knew an electrician would do the same thing I was doing.
Finally, after playing with these wires for at least three hours I was pulling on one of the neutral wires and it wiggled. That was weird, these are 14 gauge solid copper wires, they are rigid and they don’t wiggle. Upon closer examination I realized that about three inches down the copper wire was broken. I have no idea how that could happen but an intermittent open circuit like that can make trouble shooting very difficult.

It took another 20 minutes to wire everything back up and get them stuffed into their boxes and Alexa was back in business. As of now every single light in my downstairs is controlled by Alexa except the computer room (its next), the laundry room, the bathroom and my office. My thermostat and television are also controlled by Alexa. Lisa listens to her radio station on Alexa and I have various playlists programmed into her. I have Christmas music, Sunday music and a “Freds Favorites” playlist. Alexa even tells us when we have an Amazon delivery. I think the next thing after the computer room will be the kitchen faucet. They have a faucet that will dispense exactly the amount of water you need. No more measuring cups. Do you like the sign Lisa got for our laundry room?


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