Simple light switch wiring upgrade to new switch - NO NEUTRAL
Neutral Required
Many (not all) smart switches, timers, motion sensors, etc. require a neutral. That is because they need to get power even when the switched device is off. Some older switches were designed to leak power through the device even when &quot;off&quot;, but that does not work well with LED lights, so needing a neutral at the switch has become more common in the last few years. Current code in many areas now requires neutral to be available at switches for exactly this reason, but many older houses don't have neutral at many switches.
Your existing switch has hot (black) and switched hot (white).
Your new switch has hot (black), switched hot (red), neutral (white) and ground (green). You have ground available in the box (the uninsulated wire) but you don't have neutral.
There are two basic ways a switch can be wired:

Panel -&gt; Switch -&gt; Device

If this is the case, you will either have neutral in the box (connected to the neutral wire coming back from the device) or have it nearby (i.e., neutral didn't actually get into the box but is right next to it), since the hot &amp; neutral from the panel need to be together.

Panel -&gt; Device -&gt; Switch

This is a switch loop. Switch loops are a great way to avoid extra wires (saving a little money in installation) by only routing hot &amp; switched hot to the switch and not bothering neutral (until the recent code changes, that is). It looks like you have a switch loop. With a switch loop that doesn't include a neutral, the usual fix is to run a new cable from the device that includes hot, switched hot &amp; neutral. If your wiring is in conduit then you can run just a neutral wire. However, since one of the existing wires is white, that would indicate that the wires are part of a cable and not individual wires because white as an individual wire should only be used for neutral and it is only permitted for a different use in a cable because &quot;all 2 wire cables are black/white&quot;.
As Harper noted, there is a way to make this &quot;work&quot; without any additional wires (I won't tell you how) but it is not approved by code and not a good idea.