Generally, I love my Third Reality Smart Switches. I currently have three one-way light switches configured (garage, kitchen, and hallway) and a two-way light switch for the stairs all without having to do any electrical work. The app for the most part works well and only rarely does Alexa to communicate with Third Reality servers.
But I cannot figure out why they went with these mini bracket spacer things for mounting on Rev 3. They are effectively consumables with the rate I have to swap them out.
Cracked mount on top and remnants of bracket around screw on bottom.
Found the rest of it still attached to the Third Reality.
For those that haven’t installed one of these, the process is simple:
- Unscrew the two screws holding the switch plate
- Select two spacers, two brackets, and the included longer screws
- There are three thicknesses of spacer, I often try thinnest first
- Install the brackets
- Mount the Third Reality and press the button
- If it turns on/off the light without stalling or popping off the bracket then your done
- Often this is not the case
- If not then figure out which bracket (or both) needs to be tightned or loosened
- Or possibly swap out the spacers for a different thickness
- Repeat until the Third Reality always turns on and off the light without issue
It can take some trial and error to get this working. It also may mean overtightening one of the screws to make everything fit just right. However, this initially stresses the plastic. Then with repeated use of the Third Reality flexing on its mounts (as I press the button and the servo moves back and forth over the rocker switch) it slowly fatigues the plastic.
Could it just be the switch boxes in the walls of my (three different apartments) all are so sloppily placed that the alignment is out of spec?
Note, I have a Rev 2 with a different full bracket solution and it works perfectly even when the screws are overtightened. It has also never popped off the mount repeatedly like the Rev 3s.
All I am saying, if I ever get the opportunity to design my own system, we will spend more time engineering a solution that doesn’t result in repeated Amazon orders of spare brackets.
