New patio awning wiring - faulty motor?

[SFK]

Uhmmm. Looks okay. But I find items that look like that can be a right pain to keep connected to your router, network and phone.

So I strongly recomend that you leave the 'current' working switch untouched and wired in place as it is now.
As it works just leave it where it is.
It will always work, even if the new wifi one stops working or your network is down / modified, or they take away the app, or your phone can no longer install the app.

Then wire the new switch as an additional switch using the connectors in the wiska box.
As the new switch is WIFI controlled, you could have the new switch hidden very close to the wiska box, or (if big/small enough) inside the wiska box where it will be dry.

Note that I have a Alexa/Google switch controling my outside lights so I can shout inside the house to illuminate garden.
But I have also kept the old manual switch as it always works.

SFK

 

[jpowell79]

Uhmmm. Looks okay. But I find items that look like that can be a right pain to keep connected to your router, network and phone.

So I strongly recomend that you leave the 'current' working switch untouched and wired in place as it is now.
As it works just leave it where it is.
It will always work, even if the new wifi one stops working or your network is down / modified, or they take away the app, or your phone can no longer install the app.

Then wire the new switch as an additional switch using the connectors in the wiska box.
As the new switch is WIFI controlled, you could have the new switch hidden very close to the wiska box, or (if big/small enough) inside the wiska box where it will be dry.

Note that I have a Alexa/Google switch controling my outside lights so I can shout inside the house to illuminate garden.
But I have also kept the old manual switch as it always works.

SFK

Funny enough that was my original plan, to keep the original outdoor one, and add this new indoor one so that I’d have both options, however it occurred to me that there’d be a conflict between the two in certain situations.

The outdoor switch has three options (open/close/stop) and if open is selected, then the close switch will always be off. Similarly, if open is selected, then I switch to close then the open switch automatically switches to the off position. The only way to achieve the “stop” option is to switch both switches off, or else the switches will always automatically toggle.

So the potential problem I saw is that if we’re heading back inside the house at the end of the evening, we normally just select “close” and leave it, and just head inside rather than waiting a 30-40 seconds for it to fully retract and then select the “stop” option on the switch. So basically the switch is left in “close” until we go back out to the garden, as it doesn’t toggle itself back to “stop” automatically when the awning has retracted.

So if I also have the indoor switch and decide to open the awning from the inside, then it will be conflicting with the outdoor switch currently sat in “close” option from the previous night. Best case nothing happens, worse case it causes a problem with the awning motor.

Couldn’t really see any other way around it apart from finding an outdoor switch that automatically jumps back to the “stop” position once the awning is fully retracted. Couldn’t find any though.

Could possibly use a rocker switch where you have to hold the button down to open or close the awning, but presumably that would mean having to hold your finger down on the rocker until the awning has fully opened or retracted?

At least with the indoor one, the buttons on the panel will still work even if the WiFi drops out, plus with Alexa routines you can set it up to automatically close the awning at say 11:30pm each night, so it will close even if you accidentally forgot to retract it before you went to bed (handy for late night storms that you weren’t aware of!)

So yeah ideally it would be good to have both options, but if it has to be one or the other, the benefits of Alexa control outweigh the physicals outdoor switch, for us at least.

Thanks again for all your help, it’s genuinely appreciated

 

[SFK]

In which case I suggest you leave the old switch in place.
And wire in new switch so both work.

Then on the back of the old switch pull out the live wire (brown wire on L1) and terminate it into a connector to keep it safe.

That way old switch is made to not work, but it wil be quick to get it working if needed in future.

Word of caution though -- in the old switch the two switched live wires will go live when the new switch is switched.
So be careful not to open old switch without isolating mains first.