Can't add most Shelly devices

Hi all,

I recently plunged into the Shelly ecosystem. I purchased around 40 devices (mostly 1pm and Dimmer2 relays, a couple of 2.5s, Door/window2 and Motion sensors). I hired an electrician to install the relays since I have no technical background and prefer to have them correctly installed from the beginning.

The trouble is that it is a huge headache to add devices to the app. I've attached a screen recording to show the typical procedure:

• We connect a relay to a switch
• When adding the relay to the app, it finds the Shelly SSID and connects to it
• After around 1,5 minute it either gives an error (could not add 1 device) or a success message (successfully added)
• Either way, the "Discovered Devices" area doesn't appear and usually the SSID stays alive
  • After repeating the adding sequence a couple of times, in 80% of the cases, the SSID disappears and the app simply reports there are no new devices to discover.
  • In maybe 10% of cases, the new relay does appear in Discover Devices although sometimes I need to update them to add them to a room and once again they disappear
  • And in the other 10% I finally manage to add them
• Resetting them (breaker switch and then 5 x on/off) usually does not make any difference. Once or twice a SSID did appear though.

As you might understand, I'm getting very frustrated, this has been quite the investment and I'm about to return the entire batch. And worse, I'm not sure how long my wife's patience will be maintained :).

Any ideas what might be the issue?

Some more pieces of info that might be relevant:

• I'm running an Eero mesh network with 5Ghz disabled when I'm adding new devices.
• Since there's no neutral at the switches and no room for relays, they have been installed in the corridor. I've added a picture of an installed Dimmer2 for illustrative purposes.
• The switches themselves do work correctly

Thanks so much for any insights! Best from Spain

Quick update: I figured out that I can reliably connect new devices by using the browser (manually connecting to the Shelly SSID, opening 192.168.33.1 on my browser and then inputting my WiFi credentials) instead of the app wizard.

I've replaced all of the troubled relays by new ones, but it leaves me with a different issue: I still need the old ones, but I can't connect to them because they're not emitting a WiFi access point. Is there a way of hard-resetting / factory resetting them without connecting to them? For some reason, flipping the breaker and doing the 5 times on-off sequence isn't doing anything.

Thanks

When pressing the button on the back for a few seconds, the internal LED starts blinking, then releasing the button, the WIFI connection is reset and it starts in AP mode. When you press the button for even longer time, it starts fast blinking, then releasing the button, the device is reset to factory defaults. It is my guess and logical assumption that if you keep it pressed for even longer, the blinking stops and nothing is reset.