Using the Caseta Diva DVRF-6L in a 4 way switch circuit.

[JulianJ]

Can I wire DVRF-6L can wire in a 4 way circuit? I have existing wiring with 3 mechanical switches and would like to replace one with a Caseta Diva but leave the other two mechanical switches as they are. The load controller spec sheet only shows a 3 way (2 light switch) installation with existing mechanical switches.

Is this possible?

Thanks.

[randyc]

Not with mechanical switches. I was at CEDIA last week and they showed companion dimmers and switches for the DVRF devices. I haven't seen any info anywhere else though. the companion devices could allow for 3 or 4 additional locations or as many as 9 additional locations.

[JulianJ]

Not with mechanical switches. I was at CEDIA last week and they showed companion dimmers and switches for the DVRF devices. I haven't seen any info anywhere else though. the companion devices could allow for 3 or 4 additional locations or as many as 9 additional locations.

Interesting, I'm surprised by this. After doing more research I realized that a 4 way circuit of 3 mechanical switches is usually made of 2 3-way switches and 1 4-way switch. And a DVRF can work as a 3 way switch then surely it could be wired in place of one of the 3-way mechanical switches. Am I mistaken here?

Note I don't want to do anything but control the on/off from the mechanical switches and set the dimmer from the DVRF or the app.

Thanks, and apologies for the naive questions.

PS Also just out of curiosity when are those devices they showed at CEDIA going to be available?

[randyc]

I have not heard anything on availability. No one I talked to seemed to know.

[fox00]

I can confirm the caseta diva won’t control a 4-way with 2 mechanical switches. I have a circuit and I tried. They have a YouTube video which shows them replacing a 4-way with a diva where they combine the 2 pink travelers and connect them to the diva blue wire. I then configured the 2 3-way switches as you typically would. I might play with it more but I think I may just reconfigure it to a 3-way circuit and cap off one of the switches and replace with a wireless remote. I’m hopeful that the unreleased accessory switch will allow this. Did you find a solution?

[fox00]

Their website lists Claro accessory switch DVRF-5AS. Do you think this will allow 4-way operation? Twice I reached out to Lutron for a release date for this switch and they don’t have one. It would be nice if they said something like 1st quarter 2023.

[JulianJ]

Thanks. No I haven’t found a solution. I assume thought that yes the accessory switch will do this when released. They must be having supply chain issues.

[Matt H.]

For now the only solution in a 4 Way application with the DVRF-6L is to use two Pico remotes in the other two switch locations. The DVRF-5AS (Accessory Switch) should be released sometime in the late Q4 of 2022. This will allow you to use one DVRF-6L and the two DVRF-5AS switches in the other switch locations for the 4 way that was mentioned. Can use up to 10 DVRF-5AS switches in a 4 way application.

[bhadrilv]

***I am no expert.*** So bear with me here and this is a brainstorming thread. I have a hypothesis as to how the switch works and how it can be wired or 4-way or 5-way.

This below hypothesis is on how the load side connection of DVRF-6L actually works in a 3-way connection.
-Black wire is on load
-Red wire is always on hot [with the shorting wire]
-The Blue wire toggles between hot and floating, effectively becoming a toggle control for the DVRL-6F.

If we manage to control the blue wire, we can make any circuit we want.

Using this as a premise, to make a 4-way effective circuit with DVRL-6F in load side, we need to make a circuit that will end up toggling the blue wire in the DVRL-6F. The layout has to be : 1) 3-way [line side] + 2) 3-way middle whose load side controls the blue wire in DVRL-6F + 3) DVRL-6F with red wire in Hot and black wire on load and blue wire connected to the middle 3 way switch.

Similarly to make a 5-way
1) 3-way [line side] + 2)4-way middle switch + 3) 3-way middle whose load side controls the blue wire in DVRL-6F + 4) DVRL-6F with red wire in Hot and black wire on load and blue wire connected to the middle 3 way switch.

I ll try it out and let the team here know. Again this is just for brainstorming. Please do not try this just based on this post. Try at your own risk.

If anyone has gone through this, please let me know.

[KBW28]

***I am no expert.*** So bear with me here and this is a brainstorming thread. I have a hypothesis as to how the switch works and how it can be wired or 4-way or 5-way.

This below hypothesis is on how the load side connection of DVRF-6L actually works in a 3-way connection.
-Black wire is on load
-Red wire is always on hot [with the shorting wire]
-The Blue wire toggles between hot and floating, effectively becoming a toggle control for the DVRL-6F.

If we manage to control the blue wire, we can make any circuit we want.

Using this as a premise, to make a 4-way effective circuit with DVRL-6F in load side, we need to make a circuit that will end up toggling the blue wire in the DVRL-6F. The layout has to be : 1) 3-way [line side] + 2) 3-way middle whose load side controls the blue wire in DVRL-6F + 3) DVRL-6F with red wire in Hot and black wire on load and blue wire connected to the middle 3 way switch.

Similarly to make a 5-way
1) 3-way [line side] + 2)4-way middle switch + 3) 3-way middle whose load side controls the blue wire in DVRL-6F + 4) DVRL-6F with red wire in Hot and black wire on load and blue wire connected to the middle 3 way switch.

I ll try it out and let the team here know. Again this is just for brainstorming. Please do not try this just based on this post. Try at your own risk.

If anyone has gone through this, please let me know.

Following the schematic from the advanced setup guide, I can confirm that it is in fact possible to use the DVRF-6L in a 4 way configuration with two mechanical three-way switches. My setup involves line and load originating in the same box, but you should be able to adapt it to other setups as well.

The general idea is to:
1) have the DVRF-6L black wire powered at all times
2) have the DVRF-6L red wire connected to the load (light)
3) switch power to the DVRF-6L blue wire for remote control

The wiring setup I use to do this is as follows:

[DVRF-6L]
- Black wire => connected to incoming hot
- Red wire => connected to switched load (light)
- Blue wire => connected to a traveller that lands on the Black terminal (common) on [Adjacent 3 way]
* In this box, the incoming hot is also spliced into one wire from 14/3 (in my case the black wire) that goes to the [Adjacent 3 way] box. This will be used as the source to switch the blue wire on the DVRF-6L

[Adjacent 3 way]
- Black terminal (common) => connected to traveller that lands on the blue wire at [DVRF-6L]
- Gold terminal 1 => connected to traveller that lands on gold terminal 1 at [Remote 3 way]
- Gold terminal 2 => connected to traveller that lands on gold terminal 2 at [Remote 3 way]
* In this box, the incoming hot on the black wire from 14/3 from the [DVRF-6L] box gets spliced into black wire on 14/3 running to [Remote 3 way]

[Remote 3 way]
- Black terminal (common) => connected to the black wire which is the hot that originated from the [DVRF-6L] box
- Gold terminal 1 => connected to traveller that lands on gold terminal 1 at [Adjacent 3 way]
- Gold terminal 2 => connected to traveller that lands on gold terminal 2 at [Adjacent 3 way]


As mentioned above, this method should also be able to be extended to 5 way+ applications.