Are exterior outlets actually different? It seems that they are not and that the enclosure for the outside outlets are protected via an outdoor enclosure.
At the moment, I prefer something where both receptacles are switchable and where they could each take the full amperage of the circuit, at least 15 AMP. That’s my desire. Not sure what happened with a Shelly relay or other relay when the max is exceeded. What if it’s rated 8A and a hair dryer is plugged in?
Also, there is no HA at this remote lake house just yet and currently using only WiFi relays with Shelly and Kasa and where the hope is to have HA in play later to bring all of this together. So, what outlet do I want now?
I am not completely clear what you are looking for or trying to achieve, but I am guessing you looking to install outdoor receptacles at least 15A each, correct?
Both GE/Enbrighten, Leviton, and Zooz Z-Wave make several outlets that are rugged and rated 15A, 120V.
I think a duplex outlet is rated for both outlets together, total draw, not individually.
There are also solutions where a dongle with a short whip allows plugging into a ‘dumb’ plug, and the outlets on the dongle are z-Wave controllable.
Thanks looking for separate control and power monitoring from each outlet, 2 in this case. At the moment Wifi connectivity is preferred because no HA standing up on site just yet but want to be prepared for that transition. I’m happy with a 15Amp total limit shared between the two plug-in possibilities. Most of the time it will run lights, very low amps but wanted to prepared if someone were to plug something big into the outlet… if it can’t handle it, will the relay fail gracefully instead of burning my house down?
You should have a main fuse somewhere that will burn out before the house burns down.
The question is if the switches and outlets survive this or not.
Normally the main fuse will be the first to go, because it is first on the feed line and therefore the first to get hot.
My preferred WiFi outdoor plug at the moment is the Wyze WPP01 because it is affordable (on sale now actually) and easy to take apart and flash to have full, local control (my rule of thumb is never buy a WiFi device that can’t be flashed to sever it from requiring cloud access). As a bonus, the controller is a esp32 chip which can be enabled with additional features like Bluetooth proxy or Matter using open source firmware like Esphome or Tasmota (respectively).
The Wyze plug claims to have 15A-rated relays, but like your house’s wiring, cannot support 30A total. I should also note its power monitoring chip only measures the total used by both plugs, not each individual plug.