Hi guys, I bought quite a lot of Aqara H1 switches initially for house renovation almost two years ago but it was cancelled due to constrain of budget recently.

My house was a subsale old house so it doesn't have any neutral wire on light switches.

I am thinking of almost every light switches at my house has an aircond switch or 13A socket just beside it. Wondering whether able to just ask electrician to pull a neutral wire from the aircond point or 13A plug outlet to aqara smart switch double or single gang.

How safe is it to do so? Please advise.

Thank you very much in advanced

It will be a mess to diagnose if there’s anything wrong with the electrical not to mention fire risk as the cable sizing will be different between light and sockets. The weak link will burn up in a short circuit and may not even trigger MCB to trip. Hence better not.

Thanks for the advise, ceo684. So does it mean it's better for me to pull neutral wire from db to each of the switch?

Is it possible to pull one neutral wire for one group of smart switch instead?

And what's the market rate to pull a neutral wire at the moment?

The neutral existence for lights, starts at the light point itself on the ceiling and back to DB.

Final circuit not supposed to be joined so to be code compliant by right have to pull all the way from DB to wherever the switch is.
Alternatively you can tap on the 13A SSO point "like looping socket" but have to upgrade all the wiring to 2.5mm to match the SSO MCB and existing SSO cable size.

Thanks for the advise once again, ceo684. Appreciate you giving free knowledge in every reply, gained valuable insight from there.

I'll try to talk to electrician about whether they willing to pull the neutral wire from downstair db all the way to upstair because recently many electricians I asked refused to do so.

Meaning that if I do looping socket, I just need to make sure I use 2.5mm size of cable? I don't mind to fork out a bit more in upsize the cable size.

One of the electricians told me that I could eventually just to loop the neutral wire from light bulb back to switch. Not sure what he is talking about, any idea whether his way is correct or will cause more hazard in the future?

Was rather frustrated with so many smart switches laying around for years and no contractor able to fix it until date with the exception they said rewiring entire house..

Actually most of us just tapped the neutral from Aircon/switch socket without any issues, touch wood!
I presume is single phase right?

Thanks for your reply Adam.

Yes it's just single phase.

Wondering you tap how many of the smart switches with that method?

Just one, how many you intend to use it for?

I did this for my home, all switches done future proofing.

I bought about 15 light switches in total Was initially in part of my renovation plan but was cancelled due to some problem.

How much was the damage?

so far no issues for me as well, although i did no prefer this method, but the thought of laying a new cable (opening up ceiling and patching and painting back) was too much of a hassle for me.

Installed one Aqara Neutral E1 and one Aqara S1E, looped from AC 20A incoming double pole. labelled it and made a reminder in the DB for any maintenance purposes (to turn off both AC and lighting circuit mcb if want to do anything).

so far so good

My electrician charge me rm50 to pull a neutral from adjacent socket to my smart light switch.

I wondering whether I could pull myself from adjacent aircond switch to my light switch like looping style? Anything that I need to take extra caution of?

Thanks for your reply epicure..

Wondering whether the method that you use was just adding a wire loop from socket or aircond to the light switch?

I plan to do it myself as it’s just adjacent switch but worry anything goes wrong.

In the correct flow the Live still fed from the light circuit and smaller MCB,
in the reversed flow "should anything go wrong on the socket neutral" - the socket MCB is 20A or higher because its cables are all 2.5mm or higher, light circuitry Live at 1.5mm will burn before the 20A MCB trip.

This is why it is not recommended to mix and match. It is a safety risk.

However if you mount the switch at the light point itself then you already have a L and N.

This post has been edited by ceo684: Mar 30 2023, 10:21 PM

Thanks for your advise ceo684.

I tried to talk with several contractors and they said it's very difficult to pull neutral wire from ground floor to upper floor because of old house design and the existing pvc pipe is already full.

So far all of the contractors advise me to borrow neutral wire from nearest point only.. hmmm...

If that's the case, wondering how can I keep myself safe if they only come up with this solution.

Does it means that I should upsize the cable from switch to light to 2.5mm or higher as well or the wire that loop from aircond neutral to switch neutral?

How do we mount switch at light point itself ya?