毎日の家の革新はひっくり返る

In our previous article in this series we described the dilemma in our laundry room whereby we had only one wall switch, located by the door to the main hallway, for the ceiling light. We wanted a second wall switch to be installed by the door on the other end of the laundry room leading to the garage.

And, with our renovation costs exceeding our budget we did not have the funds for an electrician to come in and do her / his handiwork. Nor did we have the patience for breaking and repairing drywall to install a line from the ceiling light to the opposite wall.

We came across a product by Leviton Manufacturing Company, Inc. called the Anywhere Switch. This kit includes two light wall switches, one that is attached to the wires connected to the ceiling light with a wireless component and a second that can be installed anywhere within 50 feet that it not connected to any wires.

The beauty is that the second switch can be placed anywhere within 50 feet of the first, at any height and not require any connection to wires. Heck, when I was testing it I even held it in my hand as I walked to the laundry room from the family room and it still turned on the ceiling light. What a wonderful device for the physically challenged members of our population who use a walker or wheelchair to use in a home. This just opens up all kinds of flexibility and possibilities.

Now, the wall switch that is to be connected to the existing wires to replace the current wall switch (on the right in the picture below), contains on the back the wireless components as well as a thin black wire that is to hang down from the unit inside the wall.

The second wall switch on the left in the above picture is what can be placed anywhere within 50 feet, not connected to any wires. You do need to install 4 AAA batteries which do not come with the package. Notice in the picture below, the sleeves that come with the unit which are to contain a pair of AAA batteries each which are supposedly to reduce the interference between the wireless signal.

Now, as far as the installation itself, it should be straight forward. I mean, I am no electrician and learned a long time ago not to play with wires. Yet, I have from time to time replace a wall light switch in other houses. And when I talked to the sales associate in the store where I purchased this kit from I told him of my significant lack of experience in doing such things and he assured me that there was nothing unique about this product from an installation perspective compared to ‘regular’ or ‘traditional’ wall switches.

Unfortunately, as happens to everyone from time to time (and to me it seems with regular frequency), lack of product knowledge of multiple sales associates from the retail store, lack of proper installation instructions on the product packaging as well as within the installation instruction insert that came from the product packaging, and also lack of product information on the manufacturer’s own web site all conspired to turn what should have been a 1 hour job at the most, even for me, turned into a 5 hour marathon.

I’ll tell you about it in our next article in this series.

To continue with the next article in our 4 part series on installing our new wireless wall switch, simply select this link to Part 3.