Philips Hue Smart Plug Teardown and Repair

[@NicksStuff]

Nice job and thanks for sharing that Omron ref! The relay is far from being the tallest thing on that board, so realistically you don't need to match the pinout, you could rewire it........and maybe use a solid state relay in its place? I find the audible click of a relay sounds quite archaic on a supposedly premium electric gadget in 2023

[@nezbrun872]

I did look into solid state relays, or rolling my own triac circuit. The problems with these are cost (particlarly for the solid state relay solution) and heat dissipation. The heat issue means switching a decent current will take up space. Now I know why they didn't use a solid state relay to begin with! It you're willing to use a different enclosure to deal with the heat, a solid state relay or triac solution makes a lot of sense. So I took the path of least resistance (pun not intended) and picked a compatible relay.

[@tohopes]

both relays' datasheets say they should last at least 100,000 operations. do you know what might have caused these to fail before that? i wonder if in a more sustainability concerned economic milieu it might make sense to have relays be items you could pop out and pop in to replace, like fuses.

[@nezbrun872]

It might be the nature of the loads I have on these relays, as they aren't purely resistive, having switch mode power supplies etc in them. There may be inrush currents from the non-resistive loads which exert excessive arcing leading to sticky relays. Irrespective, I don't consider my use case, that is to turn off a bunch of devices in standby, to be a particularly onerous task. One use case that's failed twice now is on my desktop PC setup that includes about a dozen items including the PC, a printer etc. In themselves, they draw about 200W maximum, well within the relay specs. Another option might be to come up with a snubber network and/or MOV across the contacts to mitigate. I did look into using a solid state relay, but these are expensive and bulky at this kind of power.

[@tohopes]

@@nezbrun872 are there devices available (or could you fashion a device) that would connect in line with the power line leading from the smart plug to the load devices? so that you wouldn't have to open the smart plug and modify its innards to get this protection.

[@NicksStuff]

@@tohopes You mean like a NTC thermistor? You could always try to wire one between your plug and your power supply to see

[@brownatron5000]

Glad its not just me thats been suffering with this. I've had a number of these go with the same issue recently, in my case they are powering non-smart lights (e.g. Christmas lights or lamps) which is their intended use as far as i am aware. Interestingly a plug I've had for approximately 3 years has been rock solid, but the other couple I've bought within the last year have all failed in the same way you detailed in the video. The latest has only lasted a few months. (I'm using UK plugs too)

[@WolvesAssault]

I didn't trust Chinese Smart plugs they always faulty. My 4 WOOX WIFI Smart plug from last year, 2 plugs went failed stuck permanent power on & 1 plug failed won't turn on & 1 worked fine but sometime come back stuck permanent power on. I go back old timer/schedule worked fine & remote switches plugs non-smart plug worked fine 🤷 Most Chinese are not good electronic skilled. Need more made in USA or Euro or UK products.

[@ChrisTiAn-lz8gi]

1st. You need a new Ring on your finger, it is to small. 2. Don't close a repaired Part before testing. But interesting Video.

[@barbimax2]

Hello very interesting your video. Could I ask you where did you buy your special tools to open the hue plug? Thans

[@josephjackson77]

*PromoSM*

[@wael5945]

well done, i see a lot of smoke. Do u have a fume extractor ?

[@nezbrun872]

Nope, I've never used one since I was about 8yo. A bit late now. I'm 58! That's not to say you shouldn't have one.

[@MrBobWareham]

If you add a snubber network across the relay contacts, you will never need to change the relay again, it stops the contacts arcing on open and close!

[@nezbrun872]

Ah yes, and what are the details of that snubber network exactly?

[@BlondieSL]

Yesterday, I just repaired a Kasa Smart Plug. In looking at this video, I'm quite surprised how similar the electronics look. Not 100% the same, but very close. I have a whole bunch of these Nasa plugs and they have been flawless. I even have some in our garage which is about 150' from the house and router. Yet, they connect and stay connected to WiFi. So with this one plug, it went bad due to my not putting attention onto what I was doing. I had this outside to control the back yard lights, turn on at dusk, off at 10PM then on again at 5:30 am and off at dawn. I placed this under the rear patio roof and covered it with plastic to protect from the weather. Well I didn't do such a good job on that! LOL We had a lot of rain over the last couple of weeks and I found that this outlet stopped working. I brought it up to the lab to find that there had been the Magic Smoke generator was activated. LOL I had to use rotary tool with a fine-point tip to dig out and clean up the carbon where it turned the PCB. I did get lucky, because with all that shorting going on, the only component that failed was the fuseable 10 Ohm, 2W resistor. This was one of the tightest tolerances I have ever seen. It was a 0.25 % tolerance! LOL No way I could find any around here and no way I would order from China... so I found some fuseable resistors, 10 ohm, 2W but 5%. I just measured some to find one that was bang on 10 ohms. It worked perfectly. I'll say, these Kasa products are really good. I have... well.. HAD... some other outlets by a different company that just never worked right. They were bitchy to set up and constantly lost connection. Now, they won't even connect and many people are complaining. No biggy for me, however, because I'll just strip them for the relays. LOL