I LOVE getting stuff from Shelly (Alterco Robotics of Bulgaria) – my all-time favourite is their WiFi “Shelly Button 1” which sits on my desk and turns my office lights on and off if I don’t have the phone handy. So, today I received a new Shelly Blu Button1 and a Shelly Plug S (Plus) – the latter is essentially a WiFi and Bluetooth smartplug with power monitoring and extra Christmas lights.
Note October 2023: Shelly now use the name shelly.com rather than Alterco.
The plug handles up to 2500W (12A) and stores power consumption history (though personally I’d be inclined to stay below the maximum for anything remotely inductive – maybe a 2KW heater element.
The colour of the surround when on or off is completely controllable. I’ve set mine to be blue for OFF, red for ON – seems reasonable. Of course, you can turn that off completely if you wish.
This is of course not new but the Shelly Plug S looks well designed and in the Shelly APP, the pairing was straight-forward. You can change the device name and which “room” it is assigned to, easily. In settings there are all sorts of timer and schedule settings and the plug has controllable maximum power, voltage and current settings.
Next, ever since discovering MATTER, I’ve started ensuring new gadgets I buy will work with Amazon and Google Home (particularly the latter as when I’m away from home I can control devices even without turning the phone on – handy when driving). Despite no mention on the Shelly box of either Alexa or Google, I tried Google Home first and then Alexa – in both cases I was asked to link the Shelly Cloud to the respective service. Seconds later I was up and running with voice control for both Alexa and Google.
As for the new, slim “Shelly Blu Button1” – I’ve no idea why they gave this CR2032-powered Bluetooth fob button almost the same name as their excellent, USB-rechargeable Shelly Button 1, I’ve no idea, I’m not a great fan of Bluetooth and would have preferred WiFi or Zigbee. You can do single, double, triple or long press – the battery is slated to last up to 2 years and they claim a BT range of 10m indoors, 30m outdoors. The device lets off a satisfying if tinny beep (or beeps) when pressed, and is clearly meant for use on a keychain or similar. I’ll come back to this (admittedly neat-looking) device as soon as I find a use for it. Possibly for finding misplaced phones?
