I have installed a couple of bypasses in my house for lights that draw too little power for non-neutral switches and they work great.
In the latest install, I put an inovelli switch on a single dimmable LED can light over my kitchen island. It will not shut off so I was about to order another bypass and install it but I got thinking… I kind of like the continuous low glow!
Besides shortening the life of the bulb, what are the negative effects of not having a bypass?
Does the circuit use more electricity without the bypass? or is the bypass using just as much electricity but turning that light into heat?
What do you guys think? What’s the electricity usage impact of the bypass vs the low dim?
It could be the switch has a capacitor in the switch passing current into the load which is using real power to make the LEDs glow. Shunt that with another capacitor at the load (which is what the bypass basically is) and the leakage current goes from powering a load to “powering” a capacitor. A capacitor load in your house doesn’t draw real current so it doesn’t count as power usage on the meter.
But then, with these low power levels and likely non-linear loads it would depend on how your power meter is measuring everything. I know of at least one NDA covered investigation into a smart meter for over measuring power usage. I saw info that it did it for non linear loads, but not who the manufacturer was.
To sum it up, who knows unless you investigate it all properly with lab level equipment.