Bizarre voltages at 3-way lights

[Joseph Skoler]

Negative. It is true that neutral and ground are at the same potential when there's no current flow. The difference is that neutral is used as an intentional circuit conductor to carry load current. Ground is reserved for bonding and should only carry current in a fault. So do not power any loads from hot to ground, only from hot to neutral. That includes a load as small as a Zooz switch.

Cheers, Wayne

Okay, thank you for the explanation. I'm sure I don't have a total understanding, but the reasoning that there should be a dedicated (single purpose) wire called neutral to carry current from the load back to the panel (instead of a ground wire that is most likely tied at various places and in various configurations (serial, parallel) to other ground wires makes sense.