Time to burst the bubble, and move on to an alternative

  • Well, it's been an interesting and frustrating few months, and I've come to the conclusion that I am wasting my time trying to use the 3EM for any serious purpose. Initially, I had problems with the firmware corrupting the device that meant it ended up with a WiFi password that could not be reset or recovered, even after a factory reset, and the device was replaced.

    Once I had that, I was able to set it up, and in theory get it working, and due to the location, I ended up having to get a wifi extender so that the device got a reliable signal from my network, and to avoid having to use the only ethernet connecting cable that runs to my garage, which is normally used to connect to the standby generator control panel, I got a powerline extender device. It works without issues if I am in the garage with my laptop or mobile phone, but for reasons that escape me, the 3EM is not stable, and is lost on a regular basis from the network.

    I got this device with the intention of trying to monitor my power usage with a view to installing solar panels, and so far, it's been a complete waste of time and money, in that I cannot get reliable usage information from the 3EM, mainly because the software is so unstable, which results in it being lost from the network pretty much most days.

    So, in a nutshell, to anyone that's considering this device as a power monitor, be VERY careful, as it seems that for reasons I cannot get to the bottom of, while the hardware might be reasonably good, the software is still very much not stable, or fit for purpose, as the device does not provide a stable platform for gathering information.

    I was considering installing some other Shelly devices, I could use a number of thermostatic radiator valves, and some of the timers for things like gates, and controlling other devices in the home, but the experience with the 3EM has caused a change of plan, I can't afford the time or effort that seems to be required to support these devices, the regular problems with the 3EM mean that I am not going to risk making my problems even worse, I want technology that works, and at the moment, it seems that there is some way to go for Shelly to become a stable supplier, at the moment, there is no way that I can recommend the shelly devices as a viable option for stable operation.

    It will be interesting to see if this post survives, I've been involved with computers and on line support for a very long time, and I thought that I'd found a reliable supplier, but it seems that my research didn't go deep enough into the issues. or there is selective editing of posts being performed that means that negative posts about the devices don't survive for long, which results in a distorted picture of how the devices are actually performing.

    Pity, but that's life in the sharp end of home computing and automation.

  • It works without issues if I am in the garage with my laptop or mobile phone, but for reasons that escape me, the 3EM is not stable, and is lost on a regular basis from the network.

    Max. transmit power for Wifi devices in Europe is 20 mW. Shelly devices only transmit with 1 mW. This might be the reason why laptop and mobile phone work flawlessly but Shelly does not get a reliable signal. For this reason I installed an outdoor antenna to my accesspoint to reach my Shelly devices in the garage and garden shed with a sufficient wifi signal. My Shelly 3EM is installed in the breaker box in our basement and the nearest accespoint is located in ground level. Wifi signal around -74 dBm, which is good enough to work reliably.

    What value does your Shelly 3EM show for WiFi RSSI under settings - device info in webUI? Please do not use the app for reading wifi signal strength. You can also use <shelly ip>/status to get the current value.

  • The signal strength issue was the reason for putting in the powerline device, and then subsequently moving the remote end device, the distance between the EM3 and the WiFI device (TPlink 4220) is less than 1 metre, The Shelly shows up as a connected device on the network Hub, (Sky ), but the app does not connect, it's showing the device as offline.

    I suspect that I'm going to have to go through the nausea of doing a factory reset of the Shelly, which of course will mean the loss of all the historic data, which kind of defeats the purpose of having the device, it's been even more unstable since the most recent firmware update, the first time it updated automatically, I ended up having to return the device because it became inaccessible, and the most recent update does not seem to have done anything to improve the device stability.

    As I can't communicate with the device, how am I going to get the signal strength?

  • OK, so in the end, I reset everything, the main router, all the intermediate devices like switches, (connected or not) , the powerline devices and the EM3 (factory reset) , and after a lot of messing, I can now access the EM3 web hub, and rightly or wrongly, I have put it on a fixed IP address outside the range of the DHCP setting system, and that's allowing me to now get into it using the browser on WIndows, which is more manageable than using Android. That also seems to have resolved the lack of connectivity with the android app, which I also completely removed and reinstalled.

    The first thing I notice is that changes made on the web interface still do NOT reflect into the device information that is returned by the Android App, which doesn't help.

    I have now found the WiFI strength, -34Dbm, and for the moment, (the last hour or so) it seems to be stable. Having to spend the better part of 2 hours chasing around the house and garage to reset all the devices in sequence, and make changes to things to see if it made a difference is not something I'm going to do on a regular basis, I expect this sort of technology to be plug and play, and once it is playing, it's supposed to be stable, which has not been my experience thus far with this device.

    Changing the EM3 to a fixed IP address at least means I know where to look for it now, rather than having to go searching the IP addresses to see where DHCP put i.

  • -34dBm is just perfect. That should not be any cause of problems. I hope your 3EM will now work like it is intended.

    I had the same hassle with factroy firmware. My first device lost it's calibration during update and therefore was accessible but did not show any values. I had to exchange it. Second device went through firmware upgrade without any problems and has been working now for about 1 year. I did one or two firmware upgrades during that year and am currently on 20220324-123835/v1.11.8-3EM-fix-g0014dcb. I did not upgrade to 1.12 and am not sure if I will update in near future. My Shelly is connected to the Shelly cloud to collect data. I do not access manual downloads directly from the device. If I find some time I might try a management system like Homeassist, till then the cloud is fine for me.

    Fixed IP or static DHCP is a good idea, so you can directly access the device. All my Shellys have a reserved IP on the DHCP-Server.

    To sync name with cloud and app there is a checkbox in the app that needs to be ticked. You can not sync the name from the webUI.

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