The Pros and Cons of Smart Guys

1. "Shelly One" is simply one example of numerous (claimed) open-source items produced by a business called Shelly who is based, not as you may expect in China's mega innovation city of Shenzhen but in Sofia, Bulgaria. Shelly is not brand-new and there are plenty of videos out there about their items-- so I won't bore you with the typical stuff. I call them "Shelley" but I keep in mind that the box and their web user interface footer state "Allterco Robotics Ltd". Suffice it to state that they make (or maybe re-badge in many cases? Simply a guess) quite a variety of items from relay switches, through energy switches to wise RGBW lights, flood sensing units, temperature level sensing units, and more. Shelly OneToday let's just have a look at the "Shelly One", a product that completes with my preferred wise switch (it is my favorite since it is LOW-COST and since I prefer where possible not to help fund the similarity B&Q who are owned by Kingfisher PLC so really we are likewise speaking about for Brico Depot, great home, Screwfix and others) when it comes to automating my homes here in Spain or back in the UK. According to the box, the Shelly One includes a 16 amp Relay unit, open-source, A/C 110-220v, DC 12v/DC 24- 60v, WiFi 2.4 Ghz, smart on/off, embedded web server, and SSL connection. It also has (optional luckily) cloud service for remote access, services, and backup. Shelley's preferred low-cost power controller then is Sonoff Basic and it runs lots of gizmos around my house. powered by 3rd party firmware all of which talk to my Raspberry Pi-based house controller which interacts with external devices over WIFI using a procedure called MQTT. Many regular readers will be familiar with this. I also utilize Node-Red on the Pi but thanks to MQTT, that isn't essential as all the power devices require to comprehend is MQTT over WIFI. See my house control and various other blog entries for additional information. So is Shelly going to displace Itead (makers of the Sonoff series of mains controllers who have been around for a long time) on grounds of the price? No, not a hope in hell. but could they have some other advantage? ComplianceWell, yes is the short answer to the second part above. Whether that suffices for you is another matter. Here are a number of indicate think about. The Shelly One, like the Sonoff Basic, has a relay output-- you can turn things (lights, heaters, alarms for example) on and off through a range of ways in both cases. Sonoffs are cheap, have been around for a long time and they have good new boxes. Shelly One is smaller sized but the box is not so good-- there are a lots of differences however here are ones that matter to me. Both Sonoff Basic and Shelly One can do more than simply turn things on and off but then in both cases, it gets more complex. We'll avoid that in the meantime other than to say the Shelly One has a non-isolated SW connection for, say an on/off button. Use by all methods however don't really touch that screw terminal when the system I connected to power. Both companies-- like everybody else out there have their own mobile APP and cloud service. Well, you need to desire to utilize ONLY THEIR APP as that makes like basic. Actually? I've not come throughout ANY tech-type who would agree with this. ALL OF US desire to utilize a range of products, ideally with a common control system, frequently of our own making. Who desires to utilize a lots, incompatibly different remotes to manage devices around your home? In my case do I really wish to RELY on c cloud-based service "someplace" in the world = or a number of depending upon which device we are talking about? Erm, no. I already pretty much need to utilize Amazon's cloud or non-essential control such as speech input-- and that is bad enough.

2. Shelly One and low-voltage LEDs as load utilizing their own 12v supply Is this an impartial review? Hell no, I don't review every item in the world, just those which are cheap or for which I can quickly get samples to in fact check-- on the OTHER hand, no I do NOT do affiliate schemes-- I require my blog site to stay independent and have done for several years.-- and no I don't have "guest" authors. So, Shelly One-- why this, why now? Both Shelly and Itead now let you use third party "firmware" in place of their own cloud offering so you can utilize your own preferred control system. No huge difference there, other than that setting up such third party software application may or might not be an issue depending on your software application abilities (or lack of said abilities). There are numerous such alternative firmware, the best shelly devices free Tasmota being as good an example as any. One outcome of this versatility is that you can then manage their items by the very useful MQTT procedures. With Sonoff and others, you need to set up Tasmota or comparable to allow MQTT gain access to. With Shelly, you can simply provide an easy MQTT command to disable their own cloud service and usage MQTT straight, no third- party software required, all over in moments. After a fast word with my good friend Antonio, I don't even need MQTT, the REST API is a doddle to use in Node-Red however that is a whole other conversation. I did not need to use an FTDI or any other hardware during setup (see FTDI image listed below). Just a screwdriver. No FTDI required I simply understood that unlike the Sonoff Basic (and others), the relay contact set (N.O.) on the Shelly One is in fact absolutely uncommitted and separated from the rest of the board. Most other wise switches common up the neutral line on the presumption it will make life much easier for you. For Sonoff Basic, should you require a totally isolated set of relay contacts, then a potentially untidy soldering task is ahead of you. Some might state that this is not essential to them-- fair sufficient, frequently I do not require seclusion either (and with Sonoff "the rate is ideal) but today, I do need total output isolation. In the more costly Shelly One, no issue with relay contact isolation, no soldering, job done. Why mention it at all? Well, I need to thermostatically manage a heater that requires an uncommitted contact pair to manage it, and as it is a costly system, the less bodging, the much better. With Shelly, the task is done. See the picture of Shelly One at the top of this blog entry-- live and neutral in ... also a switch connection (to LIVE- - be MINDFUL of the live nature of THAT connection) to turn the output on and off manually and an usually open, separated contact pair rated at 16 amps (make that 10 amps-- Shelly do as everyone else and price estimate a DC maximum, a typical heating unit has a peak present that forces you to work well listed below their 16 amp specification-- hard to be exact, shall we say 11 amps? Others who price estimate 10 amp contacts should likewise expression their adverts more thoroughly for the same factor. A 10 amp-rated output (Sonoff Mini and BASIC) should NOT be used to control a 10 amp heating system-- be likewise conservative and if you are not a professional, listen to somebody who is. Did I say that Shelly One is also extremely small undoubtedly? 40mm diameter, 18mm high. If you enjoy to use a "cloud" in another nation or install your own software (as I generally am) then there are great deals of other blog site entries including my own which cover this.

3. If you want to use the MQTT communications format WITHOUT changing the firmware in such devices, you've pertained to the right location. Here is my test setup showing some of the points made above. I'm intentionally keeping this as basic a possible. Once I got the "Shelly One", I wired it into 220v primary power here in Spain, and right away it offered an "access point" that my smart phone could talk to (I told the phone to use the Shelly as an access point instead of my regular WIFI). I entered into Shelly's setup page (on my phone internet browser) and informed Shelly about my WIFI and the WIFI password. From that point, I set my phone back to typical. A fast check of IP addresses active on my home network showed that Shelly was now offered on the network. Another set of commands sent to the Shelly setup page disabled their company CLOUD access and made it possible for local MQTT gain access to for which it needed the IP address, username, and password of my local (Raspberry Pi-based MQTT "broker" i.e. the widely offered and free Mosquitto. From that point on I merely included 2 commands to my Raspberry Pi Node-Red screen-- an "inject" node to turn the output of the Shelly ON" and another to turn it off. On the screen, you will likewise see status tracking-- but that is simply there for efficiency. On and Off - easy Now I could easily turn the Shelly One on and off (obviously, in practice I'll be using my BigTimer node to do that under schedule along with temperature level monitoring (handled elsewhere) all with no third-party firmware,-- however was it safe to connect some system to the output that needs an isolated contact set? YES. Simple MQTT commands - topic identifies the Shelly See lit-up LEDs in the picture greater up-- they are still here, I am still here, sure enough, neither of the two "Shelly One" output terminals are linked to the mains (as we state in the UK, others may call it the wall outlet)-- and thus can be used either to manage low voltage gadgets (who's power supply may well have minus linked to ground) or something like a heating unit which requires a separated contact set. Simply beware that the manual override control on the Shelly One IS however potentially LIVE-- no fingers, thus the basic red test leads you to see at the right of the image higher up. I can electrocute myself easily enough without ASKING for it.

4. Taking a look at the (Raspberry Pi + Node-Red-originated) MQTT command above you could well ask, is all that required? The long name in the "topic" determines that particular Shelly gadget and the "0" is there (again in the topic as some Shelly devices have more than one output. In this case, the (text) subject recognizes the Shelly gadget and what type of command, the (text) payload covers the 2 alternatives you have-- on or off. Unlike some setups, this IS case sensitive. "on" works, "ON" or "1" does not-- keep in mind that to conserve some heartache. While I'm here I started this blog entry determined to talk just about the separated relay and MQTT functions of the Shelly One ... however because I understood that the "SW" switch connector (which you fasten to LIVE) was operating in a brief press mode, so instead of 2 presses turning the output on and then off, with the output initially ON, shorting the SW input to live would turn the output OFF and then releasing it would turn the output back ON. That's NOT what I desired and I was/am figured out NOT to connect their APP or Cloud. I am therefore pleased to report some of the functions of the WEB user interface. Merely pointing my PC internet browser to the internal IP address of the device opened up a nice web interface with an ON/OFF switch, options to alter the method the SW hardware input works therefore QUITE more consisting of (for those without Node-Red and my fantastic BigTimer) timer schedule alternatives including dusk/dawn and more. The Shelly automatically spotted my time-zone which is necessary for dusk/dawn controls to work. When I had a look I remembered I 'd already used this to establish my MQTT address and user name and password however at the time not fully grasped the capacity of this interface. Expect more on this topic ... I did notice one setting to protect the web admin user interface of the Shelly with a user name and password. Did that, made sure the option was ticked and conserved ... nothing altered so I restarted the gadget ... I might still manage it through the web without putting in the user name and password ... including changing the default power-up mode ... have others noticed this??? "The Web Interface is now secured by a user name and password," it states -and I have FULLY approximately date Shelly firmware. In the beginning, I was unsure about this then recognized I had 2 copies of the internet browser open and I 'd left one attached to the Shelly web interface. Once I closed that, things improved. I DID wind up having to close ALL internet browser tabs, associated or not, to block access to Shelly. Shelly One Security. "Shelly One" is simply one example of a number of (claimed) open-source items produced by a business called Shelly who is based, not as you may expect in China's mega technology city of Shenzhen but in Sofia, Bulgaria. Shelly One is smaller sized but the box is not so good-- there are a heap of distinctions however here are ones that matter to me. Once I got the "Shelly One", I wired it into 220v main power here in Spain, and instantly it supplied an "gain access to point" that my mobile phone might talk to (I told the phone to utilize the Shelly as an access point rather of my regular WIFI). I went into Shelly's setup page (on my phone browser) and told Shelly about my WIFI and the WIFI password. The long name in the "topic" determines that particular Shelly gadget and the "0" is there (again in the topic as some Shelly gadgets have more than one output.