Using an HS210 Kit to Replace GE Bluetooth Switches
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My house has an old GE Bluetooth switch in a 3-way configuration. That uses 2 different kinds of switches. One is referred to as the primary and one is called an add-on. They have different numbers of terminals. I'm trying to replace these with 2 HS210 units purchased in a 2 switch kit. Since the GE installation was done by an electrician I don't know what the old dumb switch wiring looked like.
The first HS210 installed pretty easily as everything matched up. I'm having a devil of a time getting the second one wired correctly, though. I was hoping that someone more knowledgeable than I could provide some insight. Even if I need to call in an electrician, though, I'm going to need some kind of instructions other than those provided by the app for the guy to work from.
Here's where things stand.
Here a picture of the terminals on the GE primary switch from the installation guide.
The actual switch had a black wire connected to the Line terminal and purple wires connected to the Load and Traveler terminals.
I transferred the wires to the appropriate terminals on one of the HS210s. That was pretty straightforward. It's the secondary switch that's giving me a problem.
That GE add-on switch only has 3 terminals. This picture is from the installation guide.
This is a photo of the actual switch.
There's only 1 traveler. That doesn't give me enough wires for the HS210, but I connected the single purple to one of the HS210's traveler terminals and turned on the breaker.
The HS210 that replaced the GE primary switch turns the lights on and off just fine. When the lights go on, though, it appears that there's no power flowing to the HS210 that replaced the GE add-on as the status lights go out. When I turn the lights off using the same switch that turned them on, the status lights on the second switch come back on. The second switch can't turn on the lights if those are off and it can't turn off the lights that were turned on at the other switch.
There's one more thing that might be important. Digging into the box I see another purple wire that's connected via a wire nut to 2 orange wires. I have no idea what purpose it serves or why it's connected to those wires. I didn't see any orange wires on the other end.
I'm obviously missing something here, but I don't know what. I'd appreciate any assistance that anyone may be able to offer.
Here's some additional information that I dug up. I think that I may have an idea of the appropriate next step, but I could still use some guidance.
The primary GE Bluetooth switch (also marketed by Jasco) can be used as a single pole or a 3-way switch. What makes the difference is the presence of an add-on switch connected via a single traveler. No traveler and the switch behaves as a single pole.
I was able to find this on the web about the wiring of a GE primary and an add-on in a 3-way configuration.
This seems to indicate that the load wire from the primary switch needs to be connected via a wire nut to the actual load on the other side. Communication between the primary and the add-on must, therefore, take place across a single traveler.
I also forgot to mention that the switches are in circuit with both the carriage lights on my garage and the can lights on my front porch. If that's true, then one orange wire may feed the carriage lights and the other may feed the cans. In that case, I guess that they'd be the load. This seems to suggest that what needs to be done is to unbundle the purple from the 2 oranges and connect it to the empty traveler terminal. The 2 oranges, then, would get connected to the line/load terminal. I guess that I'd need to use a jumper to do that.
Does this make any sense to anyone out there?
