Can you safely wire a lightswitch to leave ceiling light always on?

[KrizzyB]

Okay so this is a bizarre question, but I have my reasons which I will explain but the tldr is: Can I wire a smart switch so that it can receive power, but won't power the celling light on and off?

For those of you with smart switch/lighting experience you will know there are 2 camps of switch:

• Battery powered - Don't interact with the mains at all, simply trigger the device on and off using Wi-Fi/ZigBee/Bluetooth etc.
  
• Mains powered - Some require a neutral, other's don’t, will trigger smart events while also acting like a normal light switch.
  

Currently I have the Phillips battery powered switches, these are mounted to my wall where the traditional light switch would be, and inside the hole for the light switch the ceiling light is directly connected to the mains with a block to keep it powered on. I do not really use the ceiling light as we have lamps, so the switch triggers the lamps, and the ceiling light can be triggered with a double tap.

I wanted to upgrade to a nicer, mains powered switch such as the Lightwave L21 which feeds off the mains and requires no neutral wire. It appears to work as a traditional light switch that you can also tie smart events to, as well as trigger remotely, however I don't want it to trigger the ceiling light. I was hoping it would have a switch or setting that would allow it to keep power to the ceiling light on to allow you to use a smart bulb instead but it does not.

So, is it possible to wire up a switch like that (safely), so that it can receive power from the mains, but also bypass the switching mechanism and keep the ceiling light always powered on?

Thanks.

 

[ProDave]

How it the light wired? Loop at light or loop at switch?  What connections does the light switch need or is it entirely battery powered and needs no mains supply?

 

[binky]

just to clarify, you have smart bulbs wired driect to mains and contolled by an app making the light switch redundant? 

 

[Richard-the-Ninth]

so that it can receive power from the mains, but also bypass the switching mechanism and keep the ceiling light always powered on?

I am trying to understand why you would want to do that, why not just put the switch wires in a wago connector and put a blanking plate where the switch was, since you will not be using the switch.

Smart switches that do not require a neutral work on the difference of the live feed and the switch wire, which is why some smart switches do not work properly with some lights. So if you bypassed a smart switch it would sit there and do nothing, which would be a waste of money.

 

[KrizzyB]

just to clarify, you have smart bulbs wired driect to mains and contolled by an app making the light switch redundant?

Kinda, so I have 2 table lamps and the ceiling light, all with smart bulbs. The lamps are always powered on which is easy enough, and the ceiling light has the switch on the wall bypassed and covered over. I currenlty have a battery powered wall switch which, when pressed once, turns on the lamps and with a double press will turn on the ceiling light.

The switch isn't very esthetically pleasing and I wondered if I could splash out on a fancier one, I really like the Lightwave as mentioned above but, it needs to be used as a regular wall switch for the ceiling light, whihc i do not want as we do not use the ceiling light, i mostly use the wall switch to turn on the lamps.

So what I want to know is, can the Lightwave be installed to the wall, and only be used for it's smart features without toggling the power to the ceiling light?

The other option is to get a neutral wired into the switch but I imagine this is quite a lot of work.

 

[Richard-the-Ninth]

So, you want to take down/replace a battery operated switch and install a (x brand) smart light switch?