OK, I drunk the Shelly Kool-Aid and I now have a brand new house full of Shellies which actually make the whole house work, not just disco lights in my man cave.
Now thinking about the "Widow Problem", and hoping I am not alone... .
I drop dead, or we want to sell the house. I need to carry sufficient spares, make replacing a failed device with a spare easy, and have user-friendly documentation for whoever takes over the house.
I use widow to represent the person coming after me, but it might be my child, executor or the person who buys my outstanding, who-would-not-want-to-live-there house. Did I mention the view?
Mostly RGBW2 per room each with just two 24 V channels connected: Daylight and Evening LED strips. Each RGBW2 connected to a physical wall switch- momentary switches to accommodate future playing.
the rest: Shelly1 controlling high energy AC devices like car charger, water pump, dehumidifier.
We are 100% off grid, so want home automation to deliver a great user experience on an energy budget.
We are in New Zealand, so limited by what is approved here. Shelly1 is the only AC-driven approved Shelly. It would be completely unrealistic to expect to buy Shellies in the NZ retail market, so I have bought direct.
HomeAssistant (haOS on a thin client) tying it all together; though in truth so far hardly configured to do anything, just a unified manual local web UI.
I know there is some discussion in less specific places about the Widow Problem, so this topic is really intended to be Shelly specific.
I have 12 active Shelly RGBW2 and intending to have 3 or 4 Shelly1. What is shelly.eu's obsolescence plan for these? How many spares of each should I hold to cover say a 15 year designed working life for the current gear, and why?
I assume that after 15 years my widow will "forklift upgrade" to an alternative to the current Shellies.
From the factory, Shellies power up as WfFi access points with a variable SSID, and DHCP servers on 192.168.33.0/24 . That's perfect for experimenters like us but will drive my widow to tears.
What is the best strategy to make it easy for my widow to replace a failed production device with a spare?
I am greatly looking forward to this discussion. I hope shelly.eu adopts it as a a significant thread because it's probably one of the keys to breakthrough from selling to Early Adopters like you and me to reach the later cohorts who really rely on a tradesman for 20 years old advice.