How to Install a Wireless Light Switch | All About Lights | Ask This Old House

[Music] we use this room as our guest bedroom in our home office very nice I like it it's got a lot of Windows in like it yeah the only problem is we just have this one light and it's a pool chain okay which is okay but we'd really love to have a switch on the wall well let me tell you what the issues are here first of all I'll give you some history so back in the 1800s when this house was built there was a lamp probably up here run on whale or oil yeah and the whale oil you would just put the oil in the fixture and you would turn the valve up or down to control it okay and then later on when gas came to the street they would take that area where there was a light fixture and convert it to Natural Gas of some sort same idea had a valve on it that you would turn up and down and off and that's how you controlled the level of the light then electricity comes in about 100 years ago and everyone was used to where the fixture was so they would take and run Electric El it to that location but it would be the same thing it would have a switch on the fixture itself or in your case a pull chain now we have to get to get a switch on the wall a wire from here across the ceiling and down the wall what's upstairs a neighbor's condo okay so that's not going to work sometimes if there's an attic we can get above it best case scenario with the structure running this way would be to get a wire from here across the ceiling to where it meets the wall Notch out the Wall come down the wall to a wall switch that's best case scenario however a lot of the times more often than not you have a lot of structure going this way there's probably no strapping so we have to take and make a notch every 16 in to get to where we're going and make the wire go underneath it's just it's a lot of work it's a mass you have a nice painted ceiling I want to leave that alone now when you rode in I had an idea that this was going to be the issue and I brought something in my truck I want to show you and uh I'll be right back great all right all right Beth let me show you what I've brought here so this device is going to give us all the functions of a light switch without running a wire this is how it works first thing we need to do is Mount this inside the canopy of the light fixture then we bring power to it constant power which you already have we have a white neutral and we have black power both of them from the electrical panel now we need to take this red wire and tie it to the light fixture because that that's the switched power so when this switch is activated it goes from the black through the switch over to the red and that's how it's on when it's off it disconnects the power from the black and now there's no power here the light is off this is activated wirelessly this is the wireless antenna here and a wireless switch when you push the button sends a signal up here and makes this open and close so all I need to do is change the battery on this no batteries at all just a simple action by pushing this switch sends the wireless signal up to this antenna and then when you push it off sends a wireless signal up to here and disconnects the power from the red that's it cool so I need to take down this light fixture so I can get this mounted inside you know I actually have another light fixture to put up there and I was going to replace it if you want to change it out Now's the Time and here's the new fixture bar okay I'll take that new fixture there you go and I love the brush nickel thanks it's cool okay now that the ground is attached we need to tie all the white wires together the one from our module the one from our light fixture and and the one from the electrical panel downstairs all right so the White's all set now the black wire from the module gets tied directly into the building power right here okay and then finally the black from the light fixture connects to the red of the module and that's it now we install the fixture and this LED light bulb so you'll never have to change it again fantastic see the globe very nice now we just screw the switch to the wall for and that is it let's turn the power back on and check it out okay all right Beth I'll give you the honors for the first time okay cool how's that now off [Music] awesome

Channel: This Old House

Views: 859,600

Keywords: this old house, how-to, home improvement, Episode, TV Show, DIY, wireless, light switch, Scott Caron, electrical, how-to install, technology, smart technology, Future House

Id: chHEgbf0baw

Length: 5min 50sec (350 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 16 2017