Beiträge von spicedreams

Well we now know that Shelly1 (all variants including L and PM) are Discontinued.

So if you need spares, now may be too late to stock up.

Glad I already did. What about you?

I have found good success with powering >15m of 24 V LEDs from one end with no additional gear.

The RGBW2 is fed from quite a chunky transformer, and I will never need to crank the LEDs up to full power. Still it's very encouraging so far.

Our RGBW2s are mostly in a power cupboard / room where they can easily dissipate heat. Only a couple are fitted behind a light switch (because the installing electrician messed up). I can see that they might struggle to dissipate heat. Those two in particular will be working at way below their rated output because they just provide light to a small room each.

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.

Kia ora Wizbang, I am about to start doing something similar, what did you discover?

Can anyone explain how the gain (color mode) and brightness (white mode) work on the RGBW2?

Are they for example PWM where the LEDs are very rapidly turning on and off? Or are they varying the voltage or the current on the outputs?

It would be also useful to know whether the outputs are "constant Voltage" or "constant Current". The difference is important for design of LED lighting.

Vielen Dank,

Graham