bypass switch

J

jabschc

Member
Location
Louisiana
Occupation
electrical contractor
Hey guys, I'm doing a job and the homeowner is wanting all of the outside lights to come on with a switch in the bedroom for emergency reasons. The lights are for front porches back porches, floods, sconces, etc. In total about 7 led floods, 12 led wafers, and a few wall sconces, no real amp draw. They still want to control them independently (about 10-12 switches in total, 3 locations)for normal operations, but hit one switch in the bedroom in the event they need (security lighting). Just trying to see what product or best way to go about this. Was thinking of contactors with some kind of bypass or override. Thanks
 
I would just use WiFi switches. If connected to a Amazon Echo you can do a voice activated simple skill which will trigger all of the lights to come on simultaneously. Something like "Alexa Emergency" and all of the programmed switches as part of the skill will come on at once. Otherwise you would need to route all of the switching through a lighting control system.
 
WiFi is the way to go. There are plenty of companies that make switches that will talk to each other without running wire. The added bonus to this way if ever in the future they want to change any of it , they can add/ remove switches with little effort.
 
Didn't think of smart switches, customers are older, didn't know how tech savvy they were. Will check with them to see if its an option for them
 
WiFi this, app that... it all works great until the mfr (Amazon, Google, whoever) decides they don't want to run the servers supporting the hardware anymore. If the walls are open, it wouldn't be all that hard to create switch banks to handle things with a master override in the bedroom, but if you decide to go wireless, make damned sure you choose something with an open and documented protocol (e.g. Matter)
 
You could install 3 way switches, with the "up" terminal always powered, and the "down" terminal wired to get power from the bedroom switch. Common terminal goes to lamp. When switch in bedroom is turned on, all lights that were turned off will light. If done this way, you could also ask them if they want a switch somewhere else, such as the living room. I like this because it will never become obsolete, and is easy to understand.
 
Barbqranch said:
You could install 3 way switches, with the "up" terminal always powered, and the "down" terminal wired to get power from the bedroom switch. Common terminal goes to lamp. When switch in bedroom is turned on, all lights that were turned off will light. If done this way, you could also ask them if they want a switch somewhere else, such as the living room. I like this because it will never become obsolete, and is easy to understand.
Click to expand...
This woukd require all lighting to be on one circuit, or at least all on the same 'phase'.
 
Last edited:
Barbqranch said:
You could install 3 way switches, with the "up" terminal always powered, and the "down" terminal wired to get power from the bedroom switch.
Click to expand...

The way I see this being wired is to have 3-wire cables with hot, switched-hot (emergency), and neutral connecting all of the boxes with the 3-way switches. And then have a 2-wire "switch loop" from the bedroom switch to one of the 3-way boxes, with the 2-wire connected to the hot and switched-hot wires. This way the power does not have to originate from the bedroom switch box and so a neutral from there is not required, unless you want to do it that way.
 
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