I'm trying to dip my toe into Home Automation, pretty set on using Z Wave protocol, and planning my first project is not as straight forward as I would have hoped.
My main dining room and living room lights are ceiling fans (with lights) which each house 2 non-dimmable CLF bulbs (GU24 base) and are each controlled by a single switch (https://imgur.com/a/piZOR). Ideally there would be one Z Wave switch to control both fan and light, but there is not. Since I rent, I don't want to spend a ton, and want to first focus on components that serve a purpose in any home (i.e. paying a premium now for smart fan control may not benefit me if my next home doesn't have ceiling fans). I digress...
To start, I would like to replace the non-dimming CFLs with something dimmable (CFL or otherwise), hook the lights up to a Z-Wave dimming switch, something like the GE 12724 (https://byjasco.com/products/ge-z-wave-wall-smart-dimmer), and keep the fan hooked up to the switch it's currently on. Later on, I would consider hooking the fans to something like the GE 12730 (https://byjasco.com/products/ge-z-wave-wall-smart-fan-control).
The switch is one of three in a gang-box, the second controlling a hallway light and thirs controlling a wall outlet. I don't need control of the wall outlet, so my plan would be to splice the power on to the outlet 'permenantly' and repurpose the space for the dimmer. I pulled off the face-plate to see what was going on in the box, and was somewhat dismayed. 1) Nothing was properly grounded even though there appears to be plenty of bare ground wire in the box to splice into. 2) I have read that LED bulbs require a common (neutral) connection, and It looks like there are common wire's sliced together with a wire nut that I could get to, but I can't be sure until I really get in there and start pulling things out. 3) I was hoping there would be a a bunch of wires that could be obviously identified as powering the fan, or the light - working independently. Here are some photos of the box:
https://imgur.com/a/Nwe5K
https://imgur.com/a/niGDj
The fan/light switch only has two connections one says "To Power" and the other "To Fan". "To Power" comes into the switch from the romex,"To Fan" connection goes into a wire nut with a bundle of other black wire and I kind of loose what's going on in there.
Anyone out there with more residential wiring accumen and home automation component knowledge than I have any suggestions on how to tackle this?