Did you check with your electrician about the cost of running a neutral wire to a standalone switch box, or to a group of adjacent switch boxes that could share a common neutral wire?

Alternatively, you can consider newer-generation smart switches that work without a neutral wire or bypass capacitor.

Zigbee (No Neutral, No Capacitor):
MOGI Zigbee Smart Switch – 1/2/3 Gang, 20A/40A, Tuya Smart Life, Alexa, Google, Siri

Wi-Fi (No Neutral, No Hub Needed):
MOGI Wi-Fi Smart Switch – 1/2/3 Gang, 20A/40A, Tuya Smart Life, Alexa, Google, Siri

If you prefer touch-type smart switches, each panel can have up to 4 gangs (control up to 4 devices).
For mechanical type switches, the maximum is 3 gangs per panel.

I was wondering why it wouldn’t work with a DC ceiling fan. If that’s the case, then shouldn’t the same issue apply to LED lighting as well, since most modern appliances use switching power supplies to drive their loads?

I’d like to share a remediation method that has consistently helped me fix Wi-Fi–operated IoT devices showing the following symptoms:

Symptoms:
1. You cannot control the device from the smart app, even after rebooting, resetting, or replacing the battery.
2. The smart app can discover the device within range, but it refuses to pair with your account.

Fix / Remediation Steps:
1. Set up a simple temporary Wi-Fi access point with a basic SSID and password (for example, SSID: “1”, password: “11111111”).
2. Try pairing the problematic IoT device with your smart app account via this temporary Wi-Fi network. Usually, it connects within one or two attempts.
3. Once paired, reset the device again and attempt to pair it back to your main Wi-Fi network. It should now connect within one or two tries.
4. After everything works, remove the temporary Wi-Fi access point.

Although the exact cause is unclear, router logs indicate the device is refusing the handshake with the main Wi-Fi router.

These steps have successfully revived four of my own “faulty” IoT devices over the last two years (three battery-operated and one AC-powered).