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Terry Casey Terry Casey is offline
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Default Electric switches

In article
,
says...

You can see that you may end up with a long length of cable connected to
the live input of the lamp, but with the other end disconnected at one
of the switches. This wire is said to be electrically "floating". Since
it is running very close beside other live wires, it can pick up a
voltage induced by its closeness to the other wires. That voltage is
enough to cause the symptom you see.


I wonder if that 'symtom' could not be very useful in some
cases. For example, my wife refuses to turn on a light at
night if she is on her way to the bathroom but there is some
light - an orange glow from the digital alarm clock and light
in the hall from the smart meter sitting on the ottoman and
some light in the bathroom from the streetlights on the main
road about 150m away, but there must be cases where everything
is in pitch darkness.

A suitable value of mains rated capacitor between live and the
switched side of a LED lamp could give just a gentle glow.

--

Terry