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**Michael McSharry** · March 12, 2020, 12:08 AM

First consider the amperage you need for the 6 strips. This will dictate the number of controllers you will need. The Shelly RGBW2 is pretty typical at 3.75 Amps per channel. RGBW is four channels. This also dictates the size of power supply you will need. Likely better with 12VDC or 24VDC LEDs as that will make the power injection easier without getting unintended dimming or if you are using color then color shift that occurs when voltage is reduced.

You can power your strips with the power supply provided with each strip or can consolidate into a single larger supply.

WiFi controllers are the most prevalent and cheapest. Again the Shelly RGBW2 https://forums.homeseer.com/forum/li...and-rgb-lights is a good choice for either white or color. There are others such as magichome that use Tuya app and may be more difficult to integrate with HS since they were designed for Cloud operation, but HS4 is advertised to be able to control Tuya devices. There is also a beta HS3 pluign for Tuya too, but don't it to be supported in the future since HS4 will be providing the interface.

Other technologies besides Wifi will provide the control and these will be at significantly higher price points.

For the ramping control the gain (intensity/brightness) can be controlled from HS. If you want a more customized gain schedule then a simple ramp I can accommodate that in mcsShelly if you desire.

There are also many DIY projects related to control of lights. If you are into special effects the WLED is a good place to start. The firmware is free and it is loaded on a ESP8266 or ESP32. mcsMQTT provides the interface to HS. Basic special effects are built into the Shelly RGBW2 as well as other firmware such as ESPurna or Tasmota. Where WLED shines is that it can be integrated with software that drives the lights base upon music. Good for things like Christmas time yard and house lighting.

**jmaddox** · March 12, 2020, 08:33 PM

Personally I'm fond of using zwave products, so no special plugin needed to integrate with homeseer. This one is $65, which is a bit higher than the Shelly which is priced around $25

**Michael McSharry** · March 12, 2020, 09:04 PM

Don’t you consider the Zwave plugin something special? It is probably the best Zwave software interface available. When you consider the multiple RGB controllers that will be needed you will be paying a pretty premium for Zwave royalties. mcsShelly or mcsMQTT come at no cost and in the mcsMQTT case it opens up another world of commonly available devices.

**gelessor** · March 13, 2020, 03:12 PM

Michael

Thanks again for your help on this! Would you be open to a brief phone call to answer couple questions I have? I think your route makes the most sense for my application. I could use some guidance on power supplies, 12/24 volts, and sources/brands for the light strips.

Thanks,

Bill Lott
(502) 905-5688

**Michael McSharry** · March 13, 2020, 05:51 PM

We can talk. I can try a call later today or tomorrow.

The most common low price LED strips are RGB (no white channel) type 5050 with 300 LEDs per 16 ft strip. Full intensity white will be 20 milliamps * 300 = 6 Amps. If you are dimming or modulating the power needs will be lower. Pretty common to see these kits come with 5 Amp power supply per strip.

The 300 LEDs are actually three channels of 100 so each channel has a maximum of 2 Amps. This means that you could drive two strips with one controller unless you expect steady state near full brightness. A conservative engineering design would be one controller per strip. If you used 24V LED strips then your needs for both power and controller count would be cut in half. You indicated you have six strips so I assume you already have made that selection.

A common controller that comes in the kits is MagicHome such as shown below. In this case there are female pins on the right edge of the image and the male pins at the end of the LED strip are inserted. The barrel connector is for power. The Shelly has screw terminals so if you go this route then you may need to do some adapter wiring. Just depends upon the flexibility you have a the end of the LED strip. I mention the MagicHome controller or whatever comes in your kit as a viable piece of hardware if you are willing to flash the units then your controllers come at no additional cost. I have done three or four of the Magichome ones. One needs to tack solder four wires to do the upload of the firmware that will run local on your WiFi network. If you use the Shelly RGBW2 then you have the $25 cost per controller but they come out of the box ready to run on your local WiFi network.

Back to the power needs...
Your total power needs for 12V strips will be 6 * 6 Amps = 36 Amps. Something like https://www.amazon.com/GALYGG-Switch...0&s=hi&sr=1-10 from Amazon for $30 could be used if you want a single power supply to drive all strips. You could also use the power supplies that came in the kit so you would likely have 6 of these at at 5 Amps each. Power strip(s) likely needed to plug in the six power supplies.

You need to consider how the power supply will be connected to the controller. The Shelly expects bare wires. The Magichome expects barrel connector. Of course if you use both the power supply and controller from the LED kit then no additional wiring needed.

As far as brands and sources I do not consider myself an expert. For my LED matrices I obtained them from two different AliExpress suppliers. For my LED strips I just picked them up on Lightning deals from Amazon.. In the past I have seen YouTube video that did some comparison but I do not have any specific references. From my perspective the 5050 strips are a commodity item with the water immunity IP rating being the only consideration from which model is purchased.

Looking at total cost it could be as low as $15*6=$100 or ($15+$25)*6+$30=$300 depending upon approach for the 12V strips.

I have no hands on experience with the 24V strips. I did a quick look at Amazon at saw https://www.amazon.com/WenTop-Flexib...7&s=hi&sr=1-11 for $60. It seems that this strip has 50% the LED density and it looks as if one controller can support up to 3 10 meter strips. I have not looked inside that controller to know if a firmware change is possible. My view on the 24V strips is that the power supply amperage and controller count is reduced, but more research is needed to assess illumination comparison.

**gelessor** · March 13, 2020, 07:36 PM

Ok.

thinking about this... will this work and do I need anything else?

HS4 with your plugins

Power Supply..
GALYGG 12V DC Switching Power Supply 33.3A 400W, Universal Regulated Transformer AC 110V-220V to DC 12V, for LED Strip Lights, 3D Printer, Electronic Equipment, Computer Project https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XR3ZLSG..._0xcBEbBY00PG4

Controllers...
Five of these - Shelly RGBW2s

Connectors,,,
5 Pin RGBW Led Connector Extension Wire with 5 Pin Conenctor, SIM&NAT 15 cm / 5.9 inch RGBW RGBWW Connector Plug Weld Line Male Female Plug Cable for SMD 5050 Led Strip https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D8QCZQL..._OlcBEbWET2ZJM

LED Strips...
5 of these - SUPERNIGHT LED Strip Light, 5050 16.4ft RGBW Non-Waterproof LED Flexible Lighting, 12V 300LEDs, 5M Multi-Colored LED Tape Lights - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KQHQJ5C..._xvcBEbQ9MGCDN

Will the above allow me to operate the 5 zones independently and allow me to create events that ramp up to the color of my choice (including white) from zero to a 25% brightness?

thoughts?

**Michael McSharry** · March 13, 2020, 08:57 PM

This looks like a reasonable choice for your needs. If you are only going to 25% then you have an engineering margin of a factor of 4. Ie. you could use a smaller power supply and should only need 2 controllers, but you may find 25% is not bright enough so a setup that handles the 100% case and have peace of mind.

I did notice that the reviews for the LED tape is poor quality. I think you will find no matter which brand you buy that additional adhesive or mechanical mounts will be needed.

The HS interface looks like a color picker for RGB, slider for white level, and slider for overall gain/brightness. The light strip looks to interleaved RGB and white LEDs. This means you have three devices that you will coordinate to get your desired effect. I have never worked with this combination but I think you will either use the controller in RGB mode and use color picker device with brightness device or use white channel device and the gain/brightness device. If you are going to control color then you likely will not need the white channel and a LED that does not have dedicated white LEDs will provide greater illumination range. Having white channel does provide flexibility. You could try one LED strip and if it provides the desired result then order 4 more. You could also order a RGB only strip for comparison since these are not that expensive.

in the Hubitat plugin I provide a rate device that can be set to the number of seconds you want the output to be ramped across the full scale. White Shelly does not provide this parameter I can add it to the plugin if it helps you.

**gelessor** · March 13, 2020, 09:06 PM

Is there a brand of lights that you have had good looking with? don’t want to re-invent the wheel. I want to stay with what works.

**usLEDsupply** · March 13, 2020, 10:01 PM

At least with our strips the output from the 24v is the same as the 12v it just allows longer runs (double the distance) between feed wires and allows twice the length on a controller so is used in commercial applications more often.
For shorter runs (under 32ft for standard output or 16ft for high output) the 12v is fine.

We use a bunch of the MagicHome controllers with home seer and have pretty good results (the early ones were troublesome to get connected to WiFi but haven't had any issues in the past year or two other than one failing but they are cheap and easy to replace

**Michael McSharry** · March 13, 2020, 10:08 PM

The last one I ordered was https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 They are waterproof which you apparently don't need, but worked well for me. Waterproof means they are slid into a plastic channel. This is nice to protect the LEDs and the strip components from mechanical as well as water damage. The downside is that they do not have adhesive and bends are not as easy. These came with the connector pigtail so wiring into the Shelly requires no additional adapter hardware. There are wires ready to screw into the Shelly.

If you need to make 90 degree bends you have three choices. Cut the plastic channel and LED strip and buy a corner connector to attach the cut strip at the point of cut. Note the cut needs to be at the designated copper pads. Second is to cut and solder short wires where you cut to maintain the electrical continuity of the five wires. I prefer the more positive solder than the pressure contact corner, but you need soldering skills. If you do not need a tight bend for 90 degrees and you have an inch or so behind the strip then make a 270 degree bend and do not cut the strip. This is what I do. No need to fuss with cutting and the integrity of the strip is maintained. You can also do a 90 degree bend but it typically puts greater stress on the mount adhesive.

The ones I ordered before this one were more than a year ago so good chance no longer available and they also included the magichome controller and power supply.

I suspect something like https://www.amazon.com/Alarmpore-16-...dDbGljaz10cnVl would work just as well. They are similar to your link of not being waterproof, but have the 30 pixel/density for RGB. The black vs. white background makes no difference.

**jmaddox** · March 14, 2020, 02:19 PM

Originally posted by Michael McSharry View Post

Don’t you consider the Zwave plugin something special? It is probably the best Zwave software interface available. When you consider the multiple RGB controllers that will be needed you will be paying a pretty premium for Zwave royalties. mcsShelly or mcsMQTT come at no cost and in the mcsMQTT case it opens up another world of commonly available devices.

No I don't consider the zwave plugin special, it's included with Homeseer. Yeah you're gonna need a zwave interface, but I'm willing to bet that more than half of HS users already have one. Don't get me wrong, I have 13 plugins installed I'm certainly not allergic to them, but I'm also a fan of KISS; Keep It Simple Stupid. You can use what you already have installed and expand on it, or you can add a completely new protocol. If you don't use any zwave devices then yeah you probably want to consider a device that communicates with what what you already use; if you fall into that category then zwave might seem special to you.

**gelessor** · March 15, 2020, 08:05 AM

Thanks to all for the insight and input. There are so many options and products available and it was difficult to make a choice. I finally decided and ordered 5 Shelly RBGW controllers.

**Krumpy** · March 15, 2020, 09:28 AM

Where did you find any to purchase? Seems like they are out of stock most places...

**Eman** · March 15, 2020, 09:41 AM

Originally posted by Krumpy View Post

Where did you find any to purchase? Seems like they are out of stock most places...

I think .pl is Poland : https://botland.com.pl/en/964-shelly-home-automation

Eman.

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