2026 verdict
The
Shelly 1 Gen4 is the better reviewed of the two Shelly relays, with a long track record of owner reports behind it, and it wins this matchup on price and on its dry contacts.
It switches 16A across 110-240V AC or 12-48V DC, offers both dry and wet contact modes, and speaks Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, Zigbee and Matter, so it covers lighting, pumps, garage doors and low-voltage projects from behind an existing switch. The
Shelly 1L Gen4 is the specialist of the pair: it needs no neutral wire, ships with the Bypass for low-wattage LEDs, adds overcurrent protection and a physical button, and is the only one of the two that will work in a box that carries just a live line. Both reach Alexa, Google Home, Apple Home, SmartThings and Home Assistant, both repeat the Zigbee mesh, and neither meters energy. Pick the
Shelly 1 Gen4 for a versatile relay where the box has a neutral, and the
Shelly 1L Gen4 when there is no neutral and the job is lighting.
What owners say
Owners of the Shelly 1 Gen4 call it a small device with a lot of capability that sets up easily over Wi-Fi and stays rock solid. The repeated highlight is local control: sunrise, sunset and scheduled automations run on the device and keep working after a power outage, with no cloud dependency, and the Home Assistant integration is described as reliable. Owners use the dry contacts creatively, for momentary garage-door triggers, pool heater relays that keep their safety checks, low-voltage house-number lights, fireplaces, and detached mode to split a dumb switch into both power and a scene controller. The Zigbee and Matter options appeal to people who do not want everything on Wi-Fi. Their warnings are the neutral-wire requirement, fiddly and underdocumented Zigbee pairing on some hubs, a tight fit in crowded boxes, and no energy monitoring.
Price history compared
Every price change of both, in the same store, so the gap between the two lines is what one costs more than the other.
- Shelly 1 Gen4
- Shelly 1L Gen4
