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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Trying to replace switch with smart switch. Now I have 2 gang switch and two lamps in a room. I bought 2 gang (1 way) smart switch, but struggling to understand how to wire the new switch. Please see pictures below. So I see I have earth which is connected to the box, Neutral blue are all connected together, and many brown wires which I don't understand what to do. Could anyone help please. This is in UK.

current wiring

current wiring 2

manual

smart switch

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  • Hello, and welcome to Home Improvement. Well-documented question, and props for NOT taking everything apart before asking. But, you should probably take our tour so you'll know how best to participate here.
    – Daniel Griscom
    Dec 29, 2019 at 13:18
  • Thank you Daniel. Could not find any questions/answers with the same wiring as I have. These brown wires, cant identify Live wire among them.
    – Zergius2
    Dec 29, 2019 at 13:42
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    As far as I understand, I need to wire both L1 to L, and one L2 to L1, another L2 to L2... and all blue to N
    – Zergius2
    Dec 29, 2019 at 13:55
  • I'm no pro, so I can't help you; hopefully one of our pros can.
    – Daniel Griscom
    Dec 29, 2019 at 15:11
  • How many other switches control these lamps?
    – ThreePhaseEel
    Dec 29, 2019 at 15:25

1 Answer 1

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Mark the wires

See the brown wires making the bounce from L1 to the other L1 and onward? Mark all these wires "brown" with brown electrical tape, and note that there are 2 of them (and a jumper, that you won't need). These will be "L".

See the brown wire going to one of the L2s? Mark that with gray electrical tape. That will be future L1.

See the brown wire going to the other L2? Mark that with red electrical tape. That will be the future L2.

For N, you need to add an additional wire to the bundle of blue.

For PE, ditto ditto bare/green-yellow. Oh, wait, there is no PE, WTH??

Make sure this isn't cheap, unsafe, illegal junk

See where it says "CE"? See where it says "Made in China"? These things contradict each other. The tiebreaker is:

  • If you bought this retail, at a competent shop such as Wickes, inside the EU, then you are in the clear. Their retail-gear procurement procedure assures that the CE is backed by an actual, bricks-and-mortar manufacturer inside the EU, who has actually done the testing and certification which the CE represents.
  • If you bought this thing at a dodgy shop, flea market, CraigsList, DealExtreme, Banggood, AliExpress, eBay, Amazon Marketplace or any other sort of mail order place (other than wickes.com obviously), then this thing is dangerous junk. Back it goes! This is due to a loophole for mail-order goods, where items are shipped either direct from China or via a dropshipper like Amazon Fulfillment Centers (where Prime comes from). In those cases, you are the importer and you are on the hook for CE compliance.

"oooh, I'm so afraid of the CE inspector. Where's this cat gonna come from?" Right on the heels of the fire investigator, and hand in arm with your insurer and mortgage lender.

By the way, you read right. Amazon is pure junk. The problem is Amazon blends their listings, showing both Amazon's own stuff and all the third party flea-market sellers on the same listings. It's very difficult to tell the difference. And the latest trick of these bastards is to charge nearly full retail as if it were a legit product. Hunt down the device on alibaba.com, that is the wholesale junk shop that is the ultimate source for most of it; how little they pay there will blow your mind. I found a $55 pop-up receptacle whose Alibaba cost was $6.

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  • Well, it is hard to find something electronic not made in China. Here is what I've got: amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07X3HCP34
    – Zergius2
    Dec 29, 2019 at 18:02
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    @Zergius2 I did not say "all China is bad". I said certain sources are bad. And yeah, that one's a baddie. Classic Amazon Marketplace flea market item, shipped via the Amazon fulfillment network (making the CE mark worthless) and overpriced to look legit. Send it to Big Clive, the guy who does the teardown videos on cheap junk...
    – Harper - Reinstate Monica
    Dec 29, 2019 at 18:20
  • Also here ... when you google the item, and the only sellers are Amazon.com, banggood and the usual suspects, that's definitive. It's not sold at Wickes or any other channel because it can't be.
    – Harper - Reinstate Monica
    Dec 29, 2019 at 18:29
  • Well, thank you for help. All is working, but switch is too deep and cant fit into the box. Will need to make deeper box. Oh better I didnt started this project lol
    – Zergius2
    Dec 30, 2019 at 12:01
  • @Zergius2 there's a good excuse to send it back then :) although if you don't mind it sticking a bit proud of the wall, they make a "surface conduit starter box" that sits about 1" proud and gives you some space. It's made for creating a launch point for surface conduit, but if you hook 0 conduits to it, I won't tell :). You could also consider a 4" square deep steel box, with a 1-gang mud ring. Loads of cubic inches, and stands a better chance of containing a switch fire :)
    – Harper - Reinstate Monica
    Dec 30, 2019 at 18:36

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