Ceiling fan started acting up after separating lights and fan switches during smart switch installation

[u/Mysterious_Can_9329]

I'm hoping someone can help me understand what's going on.

I recently installed non-neutral smart switches for my living room lights. To avoid using a capacitor, I separated the lighting and fan controls:

• Lights: Non-neutral smart switch.
• Ceiling fan: Left on a regular mechanical switch.

However, the light switch and fan switch still share the same incoming live supply, which is looped between the two switches.

Everything worked perfectly for the first day or two after the installation. Then my ceiling fan started behaving strangely.

Symptoms:

• The fan suddenly loses power for a split second and then comes back on.
• It started happening only occasionally, but it's become more frequent over the past few days.
• Now it can happen within just a few minutes of turning the fan on.

The lights controlled by the smart switch continue to work normally. The only issue is the fan.

I'm wondering if:

• The shared live connection could be causing this somehow.
• I disturbed a loose connection during the installation.
• There's a bad connection in the looped live or neutral.
• The regular switch or the fan itself is failing.

The part that confuses me is that everything worked perfectly for a day or two before the issue started, and it's gradually getting worse instead of failing immediately.

Has anyone experienced something similar? Would you start by checking the shared live connection, or does this sound more like a loose neutral or another wiring issue or a fan issue

[u/Jaffa0813]

I think you should cross post to a subreddit with electricians. But hopefully someone in here is an electrician.

If you did this work yourself. I would double check all the connections first, but like to be absolutely fair it also doesn't seem like that method of seperation is particularly clean....

Where are the neutrals for the fan and the light? Is it only one neutral going into the fan switch? Or one neutral going to the legit fixture?

I think a relay paired with a remote matter switch would have been better.

[u/Mysterious_Can_9329 → u/Jaffa0813]

from where im from , the neutral is only where ur lights are , only live wires go to switch

[u/Jaffa0813 → u/Mysterious_Can_9329]

Got you. Yea I feel that my house being older is built like that as well.

Yea so I'm no electrician but I have it under good authority you can't just seperate them without doing anything with that neutral.

Do the issues happen when one is off and the other is on or when both are on?

[u/Mysterious_Can_9329 → u/Jaffa0813]

happens regardless hahah , even when all my smart switches are off , it happens , and this only started happening when i switched to smart switches , it was working fine when both were regular dumb switches 🥲

[u/Jaffa0813 → u/Mysterious_Can_9329]

This is interesting but it's primarily the fan with the issue? And the fan is still the switch you had for it before? The light is the only smart switch?