Occupancy sensor with no ground??

Hey everyone! Need a recommendation for an occupancy sensor light switch that does not require a ground to function. Tried a Lutron Maestro and despite several suggestions, wiring the sensor's ground to neutral did not work. We have an older home and there is no earth ground into the junction box, and the box itself is not grounded either. All I have coming in is the live and the neutral. Single pole is all that's needed. Anyone have one to recommend or am I SOL?

 

I have seen OCC switches that require a neutral to function, but I have never seen one that requires only a ground. Normally an OCC switch will need a neutral or a ground to operate.

Since your house is older are you sure you have a neutral? It is common for older homes to have a switch loop where the white wire is really a hot.

Maybe post a picture of the switch box so we can see what you have.

 

Yes..... there are several that use the ground as a current carrying conductor.
They are allowed to do that as long as the current draw is under a certain value.

In this members case.......
No..... you don't have a hot and neutral. You have an always hot in and a switched hot out. You cannot use an occupancy sensor there on that wiring.

 

Someone explained a switch loop to me and didn't believe it! It didn't make sense and I'd never heard of it. The white coming in does have current actually. Not close to what live would carry, but it's definitely hot. Tried several configurations as the single pole non-dimmable version of the Maestro I got did not require a neutral. So wired ground to the box, live to live, and capped the white as well with no luck. I thought neutral still carried a low level of current, so thought the white was indeed a neutral but now sounds like it's a switch loop?

So with this configuration, do I still have options?

 

Pete beat me to it. Sad day but thanks for the quick feedback!

 

When you used Lutron Maestro, did you hook up green wire to neutral or both bare and green wire to neutral?
Should have connected green wire only as bare wire is ground to the metal bracket and it will be unsafe to connect to neutral.
Anyway, it should have worked either way.
Are you sure you have neutral? Not just a switch loop?
Are there 2 black and 2 white wires in the box?

If you have switch loop without ground, you are out of luck as far as I know.
For occupancy sensors using neutral you will probably have to look into smart switches, but I doubt that will work if connecting ground to neutral didn't work.


---- EDIT -----
Man. I was late! Got a phone call before finish wiring reply. LOL


One option you may be able to use is get a ceiling mount occupancy sensor and install next to the light. You will definitely have both hot and neutral here.
This will require you to pull wire from the switch junction box and install a junction box near light fixture to install occupancy sensor.
Technically, since you don't have a ground, you are not allowed to extend the wiring, but I'd say it is reasonably safe to do so.