Customer Reviews

3-Way Motion Sensor Wall Switc

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During a visit to my brothers fabulous new condo I fell in love with his auto motion-sensing lights that were scattered around the house. I have a long hallway at home and I definitely could benefit from having one, so i looked it up, researched it, and found out it was these fancy little light switches that were doing all the work. I found this unit here on Amazon and a similar unit at Home Depot for around the same price. After finding my local Home Depot out of stock, I ordered two of these light switches and they came within a few days. Installing them was a cinch, even on my 80-year old apartment's wiring. The end result is everything I imagined it to be. All for a little over 20 bucks a piece? It's totally worth it. I'm ordering two more for the bathroom and the living room.

TO NOTE: Installing is pretty easy. It comes with directions but you pretty much just hook it up the same way your old light switch is hooked up. Be sure to turn off the power to the section of the house/apartment where you'll be installing these. Don't electrocute yourself.

This product (Cooper K6107) is misrepresented as a 3-way switch, which implies SPDT (single-pole double-throw). It is not. Rather, it is a single-pole single-throw switch (SPST) with a 120V trigger that activates the connection when it is off, but only in automatic mode. In a typical 3-way circuit with two travelers and a SPDT switch at the other end, the installation requires placing a jumper on the SPDT switch, which causes one of the travelers to be continuously connected regardless of the switch position. You can turn the light on and off manually or automatically with the motion sensor switch, and when it is set to automatic you can turn the light on with the other switch. (Flipping it activates the trigger.) However, if the K6107 is in manual mode and the light is off, you can not turn it on with the other switch, and if the light is on you can not turn it off with the other switch. Quote from installation instructions, "Note: After jumper is installed, this switch will turn light on only."

If, contrary to the installation instructions, the jumper is not installed, the K6107 will turn the light on and off only on the position of the SPDT switch that connects the correct traveler. If the SPDT switch has been used to turn the light off, you can not turn it on with the K6107.

Also, because the jumper continuously supplies full 120V, it won't permit a dimmer switch at the other position to control the light level.

I thought one of these would be handy to have in the main hall of my house to automatically activate the lights and avoid stumbling in the dark. But the operation is too complicated, so I'm removing it from the circuit and saving it until I find a one-way circuit that needs a motion sensor. That's all it's really good for. Would it really be too difficult to design a motion-sensor switch that acts as a true 3-way, automatically toggling the connection to the other traveler when the light is off and the motion sensor is activated and back again when it times out?

Like the other reviewer I had great results but one problem:
After dark they work great. My light switch is beside a window and as long as the sun is up the thing won't work.


EDIT 5-26-2008: User error here! The instructions aren't very well worded, but there's a "light" setting that actually adjusts the sensitivity for ambient light. Cranked it up and now it works great. No complaints!

I installed one at the top of a stair well to activate a light when coming up or going down the stairs. Because its angle of view is narrow in the vertical plane, perhaps 10 degrees it doesn't activate when coming up the stairs until my head is just a foot below the sensor or in other words the second to the top step. My other gripe is the timer which turns off the switch after no motion is detected gives you only a choice of mere seconds, 1, 5, or more minutes. There should be at least one more step in the 1-5 minutes range. I wanted about 3 minutes for my bathroom exhaust fan. But, it should cost no more to make the adjustment pot continuously variable, instead of having several detent positions, so you can select whatever time you need between the shortest and maximum limits.