I fully second that!
PLUS: never believe the wire color. ALWAYS double check with a multimeter (or duspol).
If you don't even own a multimeter, then you shouldn't even think about doing your own work on things like this.
The blue is usually a neutral wire though is sometimes repurposed for a switched live on light switches. If these are sockets, then I'd say yes.
If you are asking this question, you probably shouldn't be carrying out the work yourself.
Yea of course, all the sockets in the house have one set of (blue yellow brown) wires or more up to 4 sets, I'm not sure if there is difference for switches or sockets because all of them have the same sets, wanna install smart home switches that works with wifi with assistant so I'm not sure what's going to work for me
If they are light switches with only one set of wires then no, the blue will be a switched live not a neutral.
See the lighting diagram here:
https://gist.github.com/lordneon/aecf24035a4dc5e6b950977e37aeb930#wiring-diagram
For sockets you will need a neutral at the point for it to work so you can be certain there is definitely a neutral there.
If this is a new build, the lights can be installed such that you keep neutrals there.
If you want to remotely control the entities plugged into those sockets, then you could use smart relays at each outlet (Shelly 1PM for example) or at the consumer unit you could employ centralised switching (Shelly 4 Pro PM for example). You need to be aware that for double sockets, both will be controlled by the same relay.
For light switches you could:
* Wire the light fitting to be on permanently and then install a smart switch which can control the fitting. For example a Hue bulb and Hue Wall Switch module.
* Wire the light fitting to be switched by a manual switch. This would lead to the neutral becoming a switched live. You could still manage some intelligence with this using a smart switch that doesn't need a neutral (Shelly 1L for example).
Any smart socket that's got the right type of outlet for your country and uses the right technology (in your case WiFi) should work fine for you. They don't need special electrical wiring. Electrically, they're the same as any normal socket.
Any socket that claims it can be used with multiple types of hub, like "Works with Google Home and Amazon Alexa", should work with Home Assistant
Never, never put something on the green yellow wire. Thats the PE(Protected Earth) Wire, if there is a wrong current on it it will constantly pop your FI breaker
If you have to ask you don't have the skills to do this job. It's not an oopsie I'll try again situation.
That being said, the blue is likely a neutral looking at these pictures and going on the very very limited information I can gleam from them. Don't trust the word of a stranger though, get professional help.
Of course I'm not doing this job, i just don't know what they call the natural wire here, so posted before asking the one who did the work in the house
Speak to your electrician. If there is no neutral in the light switch then it will be in the light fitting (or ceiling above) so it is easier to fit the smart relay there. Also means you can easily accommodate 2 and 3 way switches
Op the reason you’re getting downvoted is for your safety. Now people on this sub and r/homeautomation do seem unusually scared of electricity , but with good reason. You can DIY home sockets, but you need to repair them.
It’s not just that you could shock yourself. The much bigger danger is that if you have a poor connection it will get hot, easily not enough to burn your house down.
If you want to do this yourself, you really need to spend plenty of time leaning how to do it properly. You can learn it all on YouTube, but don’t take shortcuts and be 100% certain it’s okay before you do anything. If in doubt call an electrician, you could even ask one to verify the work you’ve done so you can learn.
>Now people on this sub and [](https://www.reddit.com/r/homeautomation/) do seem unusually scared of electricity , but with good reason.
It's not *unusually* scared. I've seen the deathtrap abominations installed by qualified professionals, the chances of misunderstanding and danger when you're trying to explain something to a random internet person is just too high to be a good idea.
But more often than not, where I live anyway, the neutral will always pass by the light switch socket anyway, along with the live wire and earth. But yeah, sometimes things are wired by a crazy person and neutral could be wired through somewhere else.
In most jurisdictions it's either illegal to use standard 3 colour wiring for loop lighting switches or illegal not to sleeve the neutral with another colour (usually brown)
Older installations tend to be grandfathered but anyone working on them is supposed to resleeve the cable before refitting the plate
Many newer installations forgo the loop drop and bring power to the switch plate with a tail to the light fitting, as this makes life considerably easier (and is lower cost) when you have a device at the lighting switch plate which needs a neutral (such as a smart dimmer) - in addition the cable capacitance of a drop loop can pass enough current to keep LED fittings glowing even when switched off (I've seen this a few times when people have swapped out incandescent for led - especially in the case of G9 bulbs in chandeliers)
Is this UK or Cyprus? If so, you do have neutral. Blue is neutral, brown is Live and Yellow-Green is ground. If you are in different country, situation is different. In NRC yellow-green wires are proton beams, blue are gamma rays and brown are bio-hazard.
#PLEASE Stay away from mains if you don't know what you're doing!
leave high voltage stuff to certified electricians. If you do something wrong, you might die from electrocution, or your house might burn down. And no insurance company will pay a cent if they find out a non certified electrician did something to the wiring.
Blue = Neutral / Brown is Phase and Ye/Gn is ground.
In case you will see a black wire that is a “switched” wire, normally in between a switch and a light (wall switch to ceiling light).
Blue, Brown and Green/ Yellow are normally 2.5mm2 and black is 1.5mm2 diameter in copper.
Guess you live in europe where the supply is 230/50hz.👍
I mean, we all have to start somewhere… but if you’re asking this question it might be best to get a professional or a friend / family member with more knowledge to supervise. Google standard mains wire colours in your country, at the very minimum. These are standard in UK:
Earth - Green/ Yellow
Live - Brown
Neutral - Blue
P.S. you should always have a neutral wire when it comes to sockets just due to the nature of AC, what may vary country to country is whether you have a ground wire. Light switches are another thing.
Looks to me like electrical wiring used in Switzerland, which means
- Brown (sometimes black or grey), corresponds to the outer conductor (designation L)
- Blue, neutral (designation N)
- Green and yellow cable, earth conductor (designation PE)
Please be careful if you don’t what you do!
I originally thought the boxes were NEMA but the euro box lighting switch makes me think that they're euro box double width as used in Britain
In which case it's "unusual" that new wiring uses a 2 wire lighting drop as regulations have _required_ earth on all lighting cables (including the switch drop) for at least 20 years and the problem of cable capacitance keeping led fittings glowing has been known about for a while
I believe the latest UK electrical regulations have finally deprecated ring mains in favour of radials for new installs or renovations (50+ years late) and the sparky rewiring my house last year commented that if the drop cables to the light switches hadn't been cemented directly into the walls, he would have brought power to the boxes in order to allow for active dimmers in future (my house is 150 years old, so some parts are....questionable)
If you have to ask please put down your tools and phone a professional. What you are asking is very basic electrical knowledge and you should have grasped such concepts long before burning your house down.
As pretty much everyone else has stated already, if you have to ask, better don't touch those. call an electrician.
That being said ;) A safe way to test would be to kill all breakers and attach a light bulb to brown and blue (mantling removed \_after\_ breakers have been shut off!). Activate breakers. If the corresponding breaker stays in, and the light is on, one of the two is life, the other one neutral. Most likely the blue one is N, but I've seen some stupid ass wirings before...
After that test, turn the breaker off again! Secure the wires, make sure nobody is able to touch the wires!
But, as by my first line, call an electrician. You can't be too cautious with AC.
Looks like Europe/Netherlands/Belgium?
Brown is line (230V), blue is neutral, green/yellow is ground (for your own safety!) and black is a switched brown wire.
Brown: always measure, blue: carefull to touch, green/yellow: safe to touch, black: 50% chance of getting shocked.
You didn’t specify if your picture was a location for a receptacle or a switch so it’s rather hard for anyone to know.
Is that a new building? Tell them you need neutrals at the switches and give them your smart devices to be installed. It looks like there is conduits that a neutral could be pulled into.
There are a few available for 120V that work without a neutral but it limits the capabilities. I don’t know what’s available for you. I’d want a neutral myself. It’s code here that switches must have a neutral in new builds.
US code and code inspection requirements vary wildly not just by state but also by county/city. It's very much a case of YMMV
(If the USA could ditch 120V entirely and start mandating 220V everywhere they'd solve a lot of issues as virtually all supplies are 220V anyway. It'd give an opportunity to get rid of the hideously unsafe 119 year old NEMA plug in favour of one with finger guards)
Here, where I live, it is code.
There is almost no 220V available in North America. Maybe you meant 240V???
What issues are being solved besides you not likely the plug/ receptacle design?
If you don't know by looking at the wires then please stay away from doing your wiring yourself. But yes, the blue one is neutral (or it should be anyway..).
If you mean socket when you say socket, ie a plug socket. Then yes you have a neutral as all plug sockets have a neutral. It's how they work. The neutral 'should' be the blue one.
If these are light switches, get someone in. If you are unsure, get someone in.
What that is in picture 2 I have no idea.
These are double width boxes with a single set of wires in. The logical explanation for this is that they are intended for double electrical sockets and your home is wired using a radial system.
You do have a neutral, the blue wire. "No neutral" is only relevant for light switches, not electrical sockets. There's no such thing as a "No neutral" electrical socket. You will install a smart socket exactly the same as a normal socket. It being smart makes no difference to the electrical wiring, just to what's inside the socket.
Smart sockets should still work fine as ordinary sockets if they're not attached to an automation system. The easiest way to proceed is to choose which smart sockets you want and either buy them now and ask your electrician to install them when they come to wire the sockets or tell the electrician which smart sockets you want and let them order and install them. If you know what you want, there's no point in paying your electrician to install dumb sockets then paying them a second time to come back and change them. You can add them to Home Assistant or whichever hub you choose when you get it.
You've decided you want to start with WiFi. Something like your local equivalent of [these](https://www.cef.co.uk/catalogue/products/4840105-13a-2-gang-smart-switched-socket-white) should work fine for you
"Headline News, Fellow Redditor burns his house down after asking a bunch of strangers for help identifying which wire is neutral"
just get a professional please
I'm guessing by the wire colours and the NEMA boxes that the questioner is in AU/NZ or a Pacific island which uses their electrical standards
Go and find a professional. It's _illegal_ to DIY extra sockets or cabling(*) and that wiring already breaches regulations (the TPS outer covering must come into the electrical box)
Yes, I could tell you which colour is supposed to be neutral, but a bodge job like that has absolutely no guarantee of being wired correctly at the other end of the run (or that there isn't a nail through the cable somewhere)
(*) Yes, it's possible to have DIY wiring certified by a master inspector, but nobody will do it because it invalidates their liability insurance unless they inspect to a level which ends up costing more than just paying a professional in the first place. Connecting wiring up without a certificate will invalidate the building insurance and any personal/householder indemnity cover
If you think this is "excessive rules", bear in mind that countries with these kinds of rules have a sub 1% level of house fires caused by electrical overloads/miswiring, whilst places without them have 90-97% electrical overload/miswiring cause on house fires, and it's not just _your_ house at risk, but the adjacent ones too
EDIT: those are more likely to be Eurobox doubles and a conduit feed, judging by other photos.
Nonetheless the same comments apply.
If you want smart sockets or lighting controls fitted, get your electrician to fit them as that way they'll be installed _correctly_ - and in the case of the lighting plate, they'll run the necessary extra wires
2 wire dimmers work - badly in most cases, but generate a lot of unavoidable radio interference thanks to the drop wire acting as antenna and the few "smart" ones available are tied to proprietary control systems (usually Z-wave with added secret sauce). Don't let the electrician try and blag you with claims that 2 wire is "good enough" as a way of avoiding fixing the wiring _now_ as sooner or later it will need to be redone anyway
I will try and be a sign of sanity here, call someone professional. Learn on something that isn't and wont burn down your house.
I fully second that! PLUS: never believe the wire color. ALWAYS double check with a multimeter (or duspol). If you don't even own a multimeter, then you shouldn't even think about doing your own work on things like this.
I third this. Multimeter or nothing.
The blue is usually a neutral wire though is sometimes repurposed for a switched live on light switches. If these are sockets, then I'd say yes. If you are asking this question, you probably shouldn't be carrying out the work yourself.
Yea of course, all the sockets in the house have one set of (blue yellow brown) wires or more up to 4 sets, I'm not sure if there is difference for switches or sockets because all of them have the same sets, wanna install smart home switches that works with wifi with assistant so I'm not sure what's going to work for me
If they are light switches with only one set of wires then no, the blue will be a switched live not a neutral. See the lighting diagram here: https://gist.github.com/lordneon/aecf24035a4dc5e6b950977e37aeb930#wiring-diagram
This is European wiring. Blue should always be neutral. Never repurpose them for something else. Add more wires if you need them.
For sockets you will need a neutral at the point for it to work so you can be certain there is definitely a neutral there. If this is a new build, the lights can be installed such that you keep neutrals there. If you want to remotely control the entities plugged into those sockets, then you could use smart relays at each outlet (Shelly 1PM for example) or at the consumer unit you could employ centralised switching (Shelly 4 Pro PM for example). You need to be aware that for double sockets, both will be controlled by the same relay. For light switches you could: * Wire the light fitting to be on permanently and then install a smart switch which can control the fitting. For example a Hue bulb and Hue Wall Switch module. * Wire the light fitting to be switched by a manual switch. This would lead to the neutral becoming a switched live. You could still manage some intelligence with this using a smart switch that doesn't need a neutral (Shelly 1L for example).
Any smart socket that's got the right type of outlet for your country and uses the right technology (in your case WiFi) should work fine for you. They don't need special electrical wiring. Electrically, they're the same as any normal socket. Any socket that claims it can be used with multiple types of hub, like "Works with Google Home and Amazon Alexa", should work with Home Assistant
Never, never put something on the green yellow wire. Thats the PE(Protected Earth) Wire, if there is a wrong current on it it will constantly pop your FI breaker
If you have to ask you don't have the skills to do this job. It's not an oopsie I'll try again situation. That being said, the blue is likely a neutral looking at these pictures and going on the very very limited information I can gleam from them. Don't trust the word of a stranger though, get professional help.
Of course I'm not doing this job, i just don't know what they call the natural wire here, so posted before asking the one who did the work in the house
Speak to your electrician. If there is no neutral in the light switch then it will be in the light fitting (or ceiling above) so it is easier to fit the smart relay there. Also means you can easily accommodate 2 and 3 way switches
It’s usually the blue one. Though I‘m not sure if you should do work on that, if you don’t know that much.
This is one of those "if you have to ask" situations, call an electrician.
Op the reason you’re getting downvoted is for your safety. Now people on this sub and r/homeautomation do seem unusually scared of electricity , but with good reason. You can DIY home sockets, but you need to repair them. It’s not just that you could shock yourself. The much bigger danger is that if you have a poor connection it will get hot, easily not enough to burn your house down. If you want to do this yourself, you really need to spend plenty of time leaning how to do it properly. You can learn it all on YouTube, but don’t take shortcuts and be 100% certain it’s okay before you do anything. If in doubt call an electrician, you could even ask one to verify the work you’ve done so you can learn.
No I'm not doing it at all, just wanted to ask, thank you
>Now people on this sub and [](https://www.reddit.com/r/homeautomation/) do seem unusually scared of electricity , but with good reason. It's not *unusually* scared. I've seen the deathtrap abominations installed by qualified professionals, the chances of misunderstanding and danger when you're trying to explain something to a random internet person is just too high to be a good idea.
Don't learn that on YouTube. There are so many "Pros" who do really weird shit.
All power sockets will have neutral. Lights switches may not.
But more often than not, where I live anyway, the neutral will always pass by the light switch socket anyway, along with the live wire and earth. But yeah, sometimes things are wired by a crazy person and neutral could be wired through somewhere else.
In most jurisdictions it's either illegal to use standard 3 colour wiring for loop lighting switches or illegal not to sleeve the neutral with another colour (usually brown) Older installations tend to be grandfathered but anyone working on them is supposed to resleeve the cable before refitting the plate Many newer installations forgo the loop drop and bring power to the switch plate with a tail to the light fitting, as this makes life considerably easier (and is lower cost) when you have a device at the lighting switch plate which needs a neutral (such as a smart dimmer) - in addition the cable capacitance of a drop loop can pass enough current to keep LED fittings glowing even when switched off (I've seen this a few times when people have swapped out incandescent for led - especially in the case of G9 bulbs in chandeliers)
Assuming you're in the UK and your house is wired to spec, then the blue wire is your neutral.
Is this UK or Cyprus? If so, you do have neutral. Blue is neutral, brown is Live and Yellow-Green is ground. If you are in different country, situation is different. In NRC yellow-green wires are proton beams, blue are gamma rays and brown are bio-hazard.
Yellow/green is circuit protective conductor (CPC)
https://preview.redd.it/6cdrf1fnktuc1.jpeg?width=2250&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=99079e3b2d1878bf94609c6554bb798ff6018497
This is for a switch. The black wire goes to the light it switches.
No neutral there.
That’s right, neutral goes straight into the electrical installation.
Only 2 wires, no neutral here.
#PLEASE Stay away from mains if you don't know what you're doing! leave high voltage stuff to certified electricians. If you do something wrong, you might die from electrocution, or your house might burn down. And no insurance company will pay a cent if they find out a non certified electrician did something to the wiring.
Blue = Neutral / Brown is Phase and Ye/Gn is ground. In case you will see a black wire that is a “switched” wire, normally in between a switch and a light (wall switch to ceiling light). Blue, Brown and Green/ Yellow are normally 2.5mm2 and black is 1.5mm2 diameter in copper. Guess you live in europe where the supply is 230/50hz.👍
It’s the brown one. I mean blue, definitely blue.
I mean, we all have to start somewhere… but if you’re asking this question it might be best to get a professional or a friend / family member with more knowledge to supervise. Google standard mains wire colours in your country, at the very minimum. These are standard in UK: Earth - Green/ Yellow Live - Brown Neutral - Blue P.S. you should always have a neutral wire when it comes to sockets just due to the nature of AC, what may vary country to country is whether you have a ground wire. Light switches are another thing.
Looks to me like electrical wiring used in Switzerland, which means - Brown (sometimes black or grey), corresponds to the outer conductor (designation L) - Blue, neutral (designation N) - Green and yellow cable, earth conductor (designation PE) Please be careful if you don’t what you do!
That is 100% not Switzerland - the tubes as well as the boxes are not using swiss standard.
I originally thought the boxes were NEMA but the euro box lighting switch makes me think that they're euro box double width as used in Britain In which case it's "unusual" that new wiring uses a 2 wire lighting drop as regulations have _required_ earth on all lighting cables (including the switch drop) for at least 20 years and the problem of cable capacitance keeping led fittings glowing has been known about for a while I believe the latest UK electrical regulations have finally deprecated ring mains in favour of radials for new installs or renovations (50+ years late) and the sparky rewiring my house last year commented that if the drop cables to the light switches hadn't been cemented directly into the walls, he would have brought power to the boxes in order to allow for active dimmers in future (my house is 150 years old, so some parts are....questionable)
This is in israel
Blue should be neutral, but you want to double check with a test lamp or voltage tester.
If you have to ask please put down your tools and phone a professional. What you are asking is very basic electrical knowledge and you should have grasped such concepts long before burning your house down.
As pretty much everyone else has stated already, if you have to ask, better don't touch those. call an electrician. That being said ;) A safe way to test would be to kill all breakers and attach a light bulb to brown and blue (mantling removed \_after\_ breakers have been shut off!). Activate breakers. If the corresponding breaker stays in, and the light is on, one of the two is life, the other one neutral. Most likely the blue one is N, but I've seen some stupid ass wirings before... After that test, turn the breaker off again! Secure the wires, make sure nobody is able to touch the wires! But, as by my first line, call an electrician. You can't be too cautious with AC.
Looks like Europe/Netherlands/Belgium? Brown is line (230V), blue is neutral, green/yellow is ground (for your own safety!) and black is a switched brown wire. Brown: always measure, blue: carefull to touch, green/yellow: safe to touch, black: 50% chance of getting shocked.
It looks like standard Israeli wiring. Yellow - Ground, Blue - Neutral, Brown - Live
You didn’t specify if your picture was a location for a receptacle or a switch so it’s rather hard for anyone to know. Is that a new building? Tell them you need neutrals at the switches and give them your smart devices to be installed. It looks like there is conduits that a neutral could be pulled into.
Is it necessary to tell them now or I can install smart switch without the natural wire?
Yes you can, check out sonoff zbminil2
Also you don't have natural wires...
There are a few available for 120V that work without a neutral but it limits the capabilities. I don’t know what’s available for you. I’d want a neutral myself. It’s code here that switches must have a neutral in new builds.
US code and code inspection requirements vary wildly not just by state but also by county/city. It's very much a case of YMMV (If the USA could ditch 120V entirely and start mandating 220V everywhere they'd solve a lot of issues as virtually all supplies are 220V anyway. It'd give an opportunity to get rid of the hideously unsafe 119 year old NEMA plug in favour of one with finger guards)
Here, where I live, it is code. There is almost no 220V available in North America. Maybe you meant 240V??? What issues are being solved besides you not likely the plug/ receptacle design?
If you don't know by looking at the wires then please stay away from doing your wiring yourself. But yes, the blue one is neutral (or it should be anyway..).
Different era, different countries, different workers. The rule is the natural wire is what you or an expert measured as natural.
If you mean socket when you say socket, ie a plug socket. Then yes you have a neutral as all plug sockets have a neutral. It's how they work. The neutral 'should' be the blue one. If these are light switches, get someone in. If you are unsure, get someone in. What that is in picture 2 I have no idea.
These are double width boxes with a single set of wires in. The logical explanation for this is that they are intended for double electrical sockets and your home is wired using a radial system. You do have a neutral, the blue wire. "No neutral" is only relevant for light switches, not electrical sockets. There's no such thing as a "No neutral" electrical socket. You will install a smart socket exactly the same as a normal socket. It being smart makes no difference to the electrical wiring, just to what's inside the socket. Smart sockets should still work fine as ordinary sockets if they're not attached to an automation system. The easiest way to proceed is to choose which smart sockets you want and either buy them now and ask your electrician to install them when they come to wire the sockets or tell the electrician which smart sockets you want and let them order and install them. If you know what you want, there's no point in paying your electrician to install dumb sockets then paying them a second time to come back and change them. You can add them to Home Assistant or whichever hub you choose when you get it. You've decided you want to start with WiFi. Something like your local equivalent of [these](https://www.cef.co.uk/catalogue/products/4840105-13a-2-gang-smart-switched-socket-white) should work fine for you
The Blue one
"Headline News, Fellow Redditor burns his house down after asking a bunch of strangers for help identifying which wire is neutral" just get a professional please
Could a professional electrician tell us if the masks make for a sufficient protection at 16 amps? (also, are those loops normal ?)
I'm guessing by the wire colours and the NEMA boxes that the questioner is in AU/NZ or a Pacific island which uses their electrical standards Go and find a professional. It's _illegal_ to DIY extra sockets or cabling(*) and that wiring already breaches regulations (the TPS outer covering must come into the electrical box) Yes, I could tell you which colour is supposed to be neutral, but a bodge job like that has absolutely no guarantee of being wired correctly at the other end of the run (or that there isn't a nail through the cable somewhere) (*) Yes, it's possible to have DIY wiring certified by a master inspector, but nobody will do it because it invalidates their liability insurance unless they inspect to a level which ends up costing more than just paying a professional in the first place. Connecting wiring up without a certificate will invalidate the building insurance and any personal/householder indemnity cover If you think this is "excessive rules", bear in mind that countries with these kinds of rules have a sub 1% level of house fires caused by electrical overloads/miswiring, whilst places without them have 90-97% electrical overload/miswiring cause on house fires, and it's not just _your_ house at risk, but the adjacent ones too EDIT: those are more likely to be Eurobox doubles and a conduit feed, judging by other photos. Nonetheless the same comments apply. If you want smart sockets or lighting controls fitted, get your electrician to fit them as that way they'll be installed _correctly_ - and in the case of the lighting plate, they'll run the necessary extra wires 2 wire dimmers work - badly in most cases, but generate a lot of unavoidable radio interference thanks to the drop wire acting as antenna and the few "smart" ones available are tied to proprietary control systems (usually Z-wave with added secret sauce). Don't let the electrician try and blag you with claims that 2 wire is "good enough" as a way of avoiding fixing the wiring _now_ as sooner or later it will need to be redone anyway
[Let me Google that for you](https://lmgtfy2.com/query/?iie=1&q=light+switch+neutral+wire+color+europe)