Look @HeyImAlex I just describe what happened to me. Is this possible or impossible?
Well in real life everything is possible. The worst scenario is possible. I just wanna say two things.
First of all people just dont care. Humans are the only primates that work for a piece of paper and judges value of other primates buy the amount of paper they have.
Second of all no matter if the smart plugs or outlets are made in china they are, in my experience, very reliable and will cut down electricity in case of overload.
If you electrician who you pay to do the job fu*k this up, smart plugs or outlets can pin point the problem.
Electricity follows physical laws, thankfully Your experience that you had described is nothing unusual. As I explained above, it is normal that the breakers didn’t trip. The OPs experience has nothing to do with yours, it’s a completely different scenario.
Considering I did the entire electrical installation on my property myself from scratch, at least I would know who to blame if things blow up
Well this might be unusual but someone who done this should consider this. Could we have a fire? Yes, we could. But fortunately we didn’t. You cant say to me that break shouldnt go off if current is way over 220V. And it was over 250V if I remember correctly. This is a bulls*t job.
Considering I did the entire electrical installation on my property myself from scratch, at least I would know who to blame if things blow up
Oke, you done it by yourself. But I cant be everything and know and do everything no matter how I tried.
Ok, it was over 10 amps because aquara rated at 10 amps burned down.
BTW, 250V is within normal tolerance levels. It’s not been 220V for a long time now, this has been changed to 230V and 240V decades ago.
Ok, this is values that my smart plugs and outlets show. But this doesn’t change anything on the subject.
If you have Owen and dishwasher on the same outlet and turn them all on, current is way over 240V as every of those devices use between 220 - 230V. Breaker should go off in my opinion in this situation. But it doesnt.
Smart plug does. And this should be done by the breaker not plug.
This current is way too high for wires and for outlet.
And thats why this is a shi*y job.
And it is not the only one out there.
That’s voltage, not current. Electrical devices do not ‘use’ voltage, they pull current. The voltage in this case is irrelevant. A typical outlet in the EU is rated for 16A or 20A, depending on the country. That’s what the breaker is calibrated for. If your dishwasher and oven together pulled less than 20A (that’s almost 5000 W), then this is perfectly fine, safe and it’s normal that the breakers didn’t trip. If you smart plug burned down because of that, the issue is either with you (if you used a smart plug that wasn’t rated for the combined current) or with your smart plug (if it was rated for it, but still burnt down). It’s not with your electrical system. It also clearly showed that the overcurrent protection of your smart plug failed and cannot be trusted.
Wow, that’s scary! Good to hear that you caught it quickly and that no one was injured. If I were in your positition and a mere refund offer was all I received I would be pissed, this is something I would pester them with until I got a proper response. Did you buy it straight from Sonoff?
No, I don’t agree with you.
I changed dumb outlet and it was burned. The end of the wires was burned also. It shouldnt be like that. No matter I’m not electrician and I don’t know how to wire entire house.
Overload protection of the outlet didn’t failed.
Aguara smart plug did burned down as it was rated to 10 amps. If 16 amps is a standard, and probably is on this breaker, than its too high.
Another smart plug rated on 16 amps didnt burned down but it cut down electricity that was over 240V. And I think it should.
So, it can be trusted.
A breaker will only trip if the load on the circuit is higher than what it is rated for. A 15A breaker will open the circuit if you put more than 15A on it. If an outlet gets fried because something is putting 10A on it, it’s due to the outlet, not the breaker, being overloaded.
I actually bought them Nov. 15 2022 - so, it lasted almost exactly one entire year until it became smoke.
What could I expect from Sonoff? Nothing, I guess. It’s a chinese company…I’ll keep you informed if something is happening with them, but I dont think they care.
What I am more interested in, who are the better guys - I replaced most smart sockets with ‘Shelly Smart S’ now, but from 15 ordered, 2 were defect out of the box.
I’d like to second every single reply by @HeyImAlex above.
the failure of that smart plug was entirely the result of the internals of the smart plug or possibly (but very unlikely) an internal failure of the in-wall outlet components.
it’s possible (but unlikely) that the spring loaded electrical contacts inside the outlet could have weakened and resulted in a poor electrical connection across the junction between the outlet contacts and the smart plug blade. That could cause a high resistance contact resulting in a very high localized heating (think about how an arc welder works) and that’s going to get things going which will result in a runaway feedback loop (higher temps result in higher resistance results in higher temps…) until the structural components (made of flammable plastics) catch on fire.
all of this happens with currents far below the point that would cause a standard 15 amp breaker to trip. Again think of an arc welder…they get hot enough to melt and fuse steel but won’t ever trip the 15 amp breaker for the electrical outlet that the welder is plugged into.
but even tho the outlet failure is not very likely (unless the outlet is old or has been regularly lightly overloaded as to wear out the outlet contacts over time) the same failure mechanism occurs in poorly designed/built circuits - a high resistance connection in a poor solder joint causes localized overheating - or a cheap quality electrical/electronic component catastrophically fails and burns up.
the latter is way more likely and looks to be the cause from the pictures you posted. it looks like the melting started inside the smart plug and then transferred the heat to the outlet causing it to start melting. And especially since you said that the smart plug was off so very little current was flowing in the (typically more robust) upstream outlet circuit.
but that’s just my .04 (inflation… ) from a guy who’s be an industrial electrician for 40 years.
And lastly I’ve had a Sonoff plug burn up a while back and I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t anywhere near being overloaded.
Oke guys you explained everything in details. But I don’t understand one thing.
For example we have a situation like the poster that some device, maybe because of internal failure or poor design or whatever, start to create a lot of resistance and it start to heat up eventually it will caught on fire.
Probably there is or are some measure(s) that people can do to prevent this from happening in the first place. What do you suggest.
But Nathan it’s seems that in this case this is not what happen. The guy just bought a smart plug, connected it and it burned down. My question is there something that we who use smart plugs or outlets or switches around a house can do to prevent this.
Something that can ie. monitor smart devices temperature maybe. I know that you can monitor esp32 devices temperature and for example if temperature reach certain level, send notification on mob or turn off outlet or plug.
It was a very poor sarcastic point - You cant do anything about it - if you loaded it under rating and it still bunt that’s not the consumer’s problem. It’s the company that built it. The consumer’s job is to do exactly what I said above dont overload it.
Yes there is: don’t buy crap hardware. Buy quality and certified hardware, that has been tested, from a manufacturer with a good reputation that can actually be held liable if their hardware burn your house down.
To my knowledge shelly’s are also produced in China… Also many people report devices failures and I do call a broken shelly my own. Still it didn’t smolder away like your sonoff but “just” was suddenly dead.
On the other hand some newer sonoff products have a certificate from TUV regarding electrical safety from one or more EU norms - which I would expect to include the usual best practices regarding fire hazard.
Still you might have a perfectly fine and fit product when bought which could degrade over time or a sudden impact (like dropping a device) that renders one or more safety features useless (distances between low and high side for example).
My sonoff products are all working fine till today and from a consumer point of view I hardly see any differences between devices from sonoff, Shelly, tuya (and the thousands white labels they manafucture for).
The most rights (warranty/guarantee) are usually bought in domestic shops. The moment one buys from outside of there own country most laws are unenforceable.
Correct, although the OPs device does not seem to be certified.
But even if it is, that doesn’t necessarily mean a lot. A common problem with Chinese manufacturers is that they will get certification for a type and then mass produce the same model with lower quality components. Or even change the model completely without recertification. They don’t risk much doing this. Worst case, they lose the certification. They don’t have to fear any kind of legal liability claims. If their product burns down your property or even kills you - they can just shrug it off. It’s close to impossible for a non-Chinese citizen to file a liability claim under Chinese jurisdiction.
This does not apply to non-Chinese companies that manufacture in China. For example, a US or EU company that has their products made in China will still be legally liable if they fail, and that liability is enforceable. And as such, they will have their products fulfill minimum quality standards and keep their certifications up to date that Chinese manufacturers can easily bypass / ignore.
that may be but Shelly itself is a Bulgarian company so I’m sure that it still has to follow EU electrical standards for its products.
I think I would still trust Shelly over Sonoff as they just seem more well made (full disclaimer - I have and use both right now and I have only had that one issue with one Sonoff device).
Your experience that you had described is nothing unusual. As I explained above, it is normal that the breakers didn’t trip. The OPs experience has nothing to do with yours, it’s a completely different scenario.