Shelly Cloud devices

[vampiris]

3 months ago, I wrote my first impressions about the Shelly RGBW Controller, you can find the post at the following link: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/loxone-english/hT2-GJI3Ja4. Those 3 months i haven't seen any disconnection from my wifi network and the controller never missed a http command from the Miniserver.

2 or 3 weeks ago I bought the new Shelly Dimmer, I wanted to test it with my Osram GU10 led bulbs in my bedroom. This dimmer can handle led bulbs from 50-200VA, but there will be another version, named Shelly Dimmer SL, that will be able to dim led bulbs from 1-200VA. In my case, the total watts of the bulbs are 30W, but I had to order some devices for a friend, and since in that time the second version wasn't released, I thought to give it a try. From 100% to 90% I can't see any difference at the light intensity. But from 90% to 10% the difference at the light intensity is obvious at every step and almost linear. The step size of my Dimmer Function Block is set to 10. The Shelly Dimmer can dim the lights up to 5%-7%, but if I turn off the lights and then turn them on again at that low value, I can see that some bulbs are turned on and some remain off. So i set i the minimum brightness at 10%.

Overall I am really impressed with both devices, but I have a doubt about the Shelly Dimmer because is a tiny device and I don't know how it will handle the overvoltages or undervoltages of the network and loads near the maximum capacity of the device.

[Duncan]

as a test ive just installed 4 shelly dimmers in-line to a short extension to use with table lamps so i can add dimming capacity whereever its needed

i noticed a few of things:

1) you cant dim to 0 and if the lighting block sends that, the dimmer ignores it and stays at the last brightness, so you need a work-around to tell the dimmer to switch off when brightness is 0

2) they work very well even with a single 4w dimmable led without flickering (the normal non-SL version)

3) they seem to have a linear dim curve as far as i can tell, so add a maths block between the lighting block and dim curve to create a log curve and smooth out the dimming

many led bulbs exhibit the becaviours you are seeing - namely not routinely coming on from start at very low dim levels, and not showing much change in brightness between around 75% and 100% - the log curve helps here

to do a log curve, set the lighting controller to be 0-10 rather than 0-100, connect the output to both inputs of a multiplier block so the max output is 10x10=100. connect the multiplier output to the virtual output driving the shelly dimmer

[Rydens]

Very interesting. I am using several Shelly 1 and 2.5s relay modules. They are small and just work. They also have great software and have never dropped WiFi. 

These are like the Loxone air Nano - but Wifi and much cheaper, and with great software options which can be used in all sorts of ways. They also work out the box with voice assistants.

They also have an interesting inline button for table lamps which allows normal control by switch plus automation. (basically a Shelly 1 in a switch enclosure)

Will try the dimmers next.

An impressive company with some great products.

Order direct from them for the best price (although about 10 days shipping), some of the items are also on Amazon. 

Cheers David