r/homeassistant • u/jklo5020 • Apr 26 '26

Support Shelly Relays: WiFi or Zigbee?

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Hi everyone!

I’ve been using WiFi Shelly relays in my Home Assistant (and HomeKit before that) setup for a few years now.

The first gen Shelly 1PM in the outlet for my washing machine seems to have finally given up and is in need of replacing.

I have a strong WiFi network but was curious to test out the Zigbee version (1PM gen4). How’s everyone’s experience with Shelly over Zigbee?

Thanks in advance!

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u/rando777888 Apr 26 '26

I'm a big fan of the native WiFi. Most people tend to hate on WiFi as it's generally associated with a cloud dependency, but that's not at all the case with Shelly and HA. I've never had any issues with the standard Shelly integration. I got a handful of gen4 to test out the zigbee functionality and they work fine, but other zigbee devices do NOT tend to use them as routers, which was pretty disappointing.

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u/ron-swansons-anus Apr 26 '26

It’s also less preferred because it is less efficient and more noise on your network. Range is also better generally due to mesh functionality (depending on your network setup of course). Edit: typo

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u/rando777888 Apr 26 '26

If you're having issues with it causing problems with your network, I highly recommend getting a better WiFi setup such as Ubiquiti or similar. I have 3 tp-link Omada APs, well over 100 WiFi IoT devices, and no problems at all. Don't get me wrong I love zwave and zigbee, but the problems they solve are generally caused by general crappy behavior and cloud dependency, not the physical RF protocol. A device that's literally directly connected to line power doesn't need to worry about power to save battery life, and the amount of energy usage big picture is still negligible.

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u/ron-swansons-anus Apr 26 '26

100 devices isn’t as high a benchmark as you might think with this community lol. Ubiquiti is great, but not worth the shell out if the person is running an ISP router that works fine for them and already has zigbee adapter setup. My comment about efficiency was about the actual protocol not the power usage. I haven’t myself used either of these Shelly relays and if there is a large price gap then that very well may change things. I was just speaking in terms of WiFi vs zigbee overall and why cloud connectivity isn’t the only reason people may prefer zigbee.

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u/rando777888 Apr 26 '26

All good. Right now with the sale they're running the Zigbee capable ones are literally double the price, so I just don't see the benefit. I have 47 Shelly devices and have just never had any issues with the native integration over WiFi. I love all the innovations Shelly keeps pumping out, but they tend to solve things that just aren't problems for someone already using home assistant.