Shelly Button 1 (Shelly Button 2) Setup, Reset and Installation - Lessons Learned

  • Hi,

    My brother and I struggled with this device for days, having initially set it up only to have it not work and not be accessible and constantly fall asleep. In addition the FACTORY RESET option in the APP Menu simply did NOT reset it. Even when we attempted to "FACTORY RESET" it AND DELETE it from the App, then tried to re-add it, it kept coming back as the same device, with the same name and all the same settings.

    So, we thought we would provide some feedback on our experiences and what worked for us in getting it set up.

    No guarantees, but it might work for you and if it does great, because if you're here reading this and you're you are as desperate (and desperately tired) as we were, then this might be your Eureka moment. If it does, post a wee note below to let us know your experience.

    I would really appreciate if you don't just diss the post please and say 'RTM'; that is not positive. We did RTM and found it either lacking, confusing or incomprehensible for our situation.

    Shelly Button 1 Setup; Lessons Learned:

    • Open the back gently, remove the Battery and set it up on USB Power only; i.e. UNPLUG it from the Battery. If you do not have USB Power to hand, it might work if you unplug the battery and leave it for a for a while, then reinsert and go through the RESET procedure. We did not test this.
    • To RESET, find the reset button UNDER the battery, do a 10 sec press, wait 5 secs whilst you watch the blinking LED, wait another 10 secs to ensure you then see a faster blinking LED, release the rest button. Refer Shelly Button Instructions under "Installation/Initial inclusion"; this part was useful .
    • ⁠Connect the Device via Phone or Tablet to the Temporary Shelly SSID (e.g. shellybutton1-
    • 35FA58 per instructions) then access the Web Interface via IP Address 192.168.33.1 first, before moving to Router and Cloud App. You might want to update to the BETA FW at this stage. Currently 1.14.1-RC.
    • You can access the Web GUI via the Shelly Setup IP Address or AFTER you connect to your main network, via the IP Address given by the Router (DHCP-assigned or a Static IP set by you).
    • You can only update to beta FW from the WebGUI; NOT from the shelly App, that only offers the stable FW.
    • You can only input a separate Time Server (sntp/ntp) from the WebGUI; NOT from the shelly App, that only offers a semi-automatic Geo-location.
    • If you use Home Assistant (HA) you can only setup CoIoT (192:168:.xx:xxx:5683) from the WebGUI; NOT from the shelly App, that only offers an option for the Outbound WebSocket i.e. (ws://192.168.xx.xxx:8123/api/shelly/ws), where xx is the subnet and xxx is the address of your HA Server respectively.

    ⁠NOTE 1: BUTTON PRESSES !!!(and this is very important)!!!

    • We found that if you link (using the little link Icon) URL (DDD) or HTTP commands to other Switches or Devices, these Button-presses will ONLY fire on either Battery OR USB Power; but NOT both. (EDIT: Actually when the units charged up overnight, "both" did work, but seems flaky).
    • So if you find "nothing happens", the LEDs do not suggest they 'clicked', then do what we did and take out the Battery, run it on USB only.
    • You can also run (and fire successful Button Presses) ONLY on the Battery, but there is a post click timeout of 0s-5s which makes the thing go to sleep and if you need to access it to amend URLs etc it was impossible (for us at least) to get it to wake up.
    • Often it says "Setting saved successfully, the device is currently sleeping. It will update once it wakes up." Well, for us that was a big fat lie as (on battery) it did not (or only rarely) ever update when it woke up (which it struggled to do).

    ⁠NOTE 2: FIRMWARE UPDATES

    • As regards FW Updates please note that the App only updates to the latest STABLE version (and this is important, for what follows).
    • If you want to check for and update to the latest BETA Version, then you can only do it through the WebGUI as noted above. All good so far.
    • However when you go to the App and check for updates, it tells you "There's an Update!" so you probably get all excited and update it, without looking at the revision.
    • However the latest Stable Version is e.g. 1.14.0 but the BETA was 1.14.1-RC, so the update effectively 'downgrades' the FW (to the latest Stable version). Just a heads up.
    • Separately,If you want to check FW status, then based on this page, I discovered the FW repo can be useful to access if for nothing else than to check the latest Beta RC Version for Shelly Button 1, called SHBTN-2. In that site, there's a .txt file which gives version information and a .zip file which has the FW itself; note that sometimes the site is not accessible. For Shelly Button 1, is SHBTN-2 (which I think is why when you bought a Shelly Button 1, you sometimes see "Shelly Button 2" on the Device Information tab in the App, see picture attached). Causes quite some confusion.
    • There is also a direct FW Update tool http://archive.shelly-tools.de/, but I strongly suggest you just do it in the WebGUI.

    HTH