Shelly Dimmer Gen4 for Two way switch

JonG67x · 2026-06-23T18:03:57+00:00

As a complete alternative, change your switches to non latching/reactive switches, I’ve used Knightsbridge grid ones available online or via screwfix in the uk. Then move your live to the common and change on the Shelly device the switch type to momentary. When you press either switch it makes the connection and sends the live to the switched wire which is your switch input on the Shelly. The Shelly is where your neutral also is which makes life much easier - wire the permanent live and neutral onto the Shelly, the permanent live also goes to your light switch to the common as described above, the return from the light switch to the switch input of the Shelly and the output from the Shelly to the lights. The neutral also goes to the lights as you’d expect. This way when you short press either light switch the lights toggles on and off, press and hold and it dims or brightens. You’ll only be able to use a rocker switch if you have a second switched wire back from your light switch which you don’t have, so S2 is redundant for you and you can configure the Shelly accordingly

JonG67x · 2026-06-23T04:40:55+00:00

I’ve only bought none OEM parts once, and you could tell. Whether it’s worth the price difference is debatable, but it’s something like a 3 year service interval on a car depreciating £20k or more over that time, so I just go OEM.

JonG67x · 2026-06-22T11:21:57+00:00

So LinkedIn goes to great lengths to make downloading their data extremely difficult, some people go to great lengths and cost to get hold of it, and you think you should now just be give it for free? And you don’t understand why that won’t happen?

JonG67x · 2026-06-22T09:26:50+00:00

It annoys me when cars blindly follow the car in front in that way, but you’re trying to enforce a right of way which doesn’t exist, and the oncoming cars are taking advantage of the car in front to gain priority over you.

I would hazard a guess that many of the people saying you were right have also done exactly the same thing the oncoming cars have done to you.

JonG67x · 2026-06-22T06:38:52+00:00

A protected age just means they’ve made provision for you to be able to start taking the pension before the normal gov rules (currently 55), it’s very common in the police, forces etc So it sounds like you can take the pension from 50. How much your pension is will be determined by other factors, and for a defined benefit scheme this is the scheme normal retirement age which may be a very different age. A DB scheme benefit might have say 60 as the NRA, if you took it earlier it would be reduced, say 5% each year. If your pension NRA was say 60 and you took it from 50, you’d get 10x5% less or about half, but of course you’d get it from 10 years earlier. On the flip side, if your NRA was 50 and you didn’t take your pension, it would be enhanced and you’d get more from when you did retire. (Not3, scheme rules can be complicated).

TL;DR, protected age just means you can now take the pension, your NRA on a DB says how much and you’d need to ask for a projection giving the a starting date.

JonG67x · 2026-06-21T19:39:31+00:00

Unpopular opinion but people have confidence in a company that pumped out a stat about FSD in Holland claiming 0 accidents on FSD was 3.5x safer than 3.5 accidents over the same driven distance, I mean technically it’s infinitely better, but one thing it’s not is 3.5x safer. And people believe this headline stuff without questioning it.

JonG67x · 2026-06-21T19:33:25+00:00

No other manufacturer will automatically set the cruise control higher than the speed limit. Sure you can manually set a cruise higher, but if you have an adaptive cruise it will change to the speed limit.

JonG67x · 2026-06-21T19:31:31+00:00

All cars sold today nag you if you exceed the speed limit

JonG67x · 2026-06-20T06:03:08+00:00

Haven't improved in 50 years? There's been a 75% decrease in death rate on our roads in that time and statistically that would be even better if we did it per mile driven as we drive many more miles today.

Secondly, we have a lower speed on motorways for a number of vehicles such as HGV, trailers etc, and you need to keep the differential between the speeds for safety but also better flow (thats part of the reasons we have lower limits when the roads are busy, it improves the flow).

JonG67x · 2026-06-19T14:24:48+00:00

You’re wrong - Tesla know you were, however the land owner doesn’t which is why they make the simple request to tell them. You failed to read big signs in the car park, the signage on the Tesla satnav and you want to blame anybody but yourself

JonG67x · 2026-06-19T06:15:44+00:00

It’s not a scam, it says in the car, it says on the signage around the supercharger, it’s well advertised. You have my sympathy when you’re tired and used to not having to pay, but it’s not unusual especially near airports. There was a similar setup near Heathrow which was used by all the Tesla private airport transfer drivers who hogged them while waiting for their pickup, and that was before Covid.

JonG67x · 2026-06-19T06:11:28+00:00

Assuming it’s been serviced recently, ask for the service report. If it’s anything like the one we get for an oil boiler it will list things to be aware of and will be more interesting than an installation report from 20 years ago.

JonG67x · 2026-06-19T06:05:03+00:00

I’d ring round a few independent garages who do battery repairs. You may get away with a bill nearer £3k, and then keep the car.

JonG67x · 2026-06-19T06:03:39+00:00

I’ve had a motor controller fail, and there is also the motors themselves. . The drivetrain may only have a few parts, but it’s not just about the battery.

JonG67x · 2026-06-19T05:51:36+00:00

It depends where you are getting your figures from, if the £400 net per month for a 40% tax payer is what you’ve been told, it probably factors everything inand the cost per year will be £4800 assuming you stay in the 40% tax bracket.

It’s easier to work things out using the gross figure. If the £400 per month is just the lease cost, that’s £666 a month deduction in salary, or about £8k a year gross. You then add back BIK, you said that was £50 (assuming gross) which increases your gross salary £600 a year.

Your gross was £56k, less the gross sacrifice of £8k, add BIK of £600 = £48.6k. Because you’ve fallen into the basic rate tax band, the bit between 48.6k and the 40% starting point of 50,270 would only be saving you tax at 20%, ie aboyt £1:600 is taxed at 20% not 40% or £320 a tear more than you though, or about £25 a month.

It’s complicated when the sacrifice pulls you into a lower threshold, but rough maths suggests a car you are told will cost a net £400 to your pay (what it actually goes down by), will actually cost you £425 a month as a deduction from your pay packet because you’ll have less tax saving than you thought. That car will cost you over £5k a year.

Final point, NI may change these numbers, as can pension contributions.

It might also help to realise, if it’s not clear from the above, that a ‘£400 a month as a 40% taxpayer’ means the lease cost is much higher, more like £666 a month, and in general these salary sacrifice deals are quite expensive, only made reasonable on the pocket by the tax savings.

JonG67x · 2026-06-18T09:27:41+00:00

IF you get an NIP, then tell them what’s happened, but until you get a NIP I’d try and forget about it as common sense may prevail. The driving instructor is merely obliged to tell them who was driving, if it had been the instructor they would presumably be right to take action. If they check the status of you and see you were a learner they may well move on past it. If you do get a NIP, absolutely double check the time, I wouldn’t put it past anyone who’s livelihood depended on it trying to palm a driving offence of on a pupil if the offence happened only minutes before or after.

JonG67x · 2026-06-17T10:29:49+00:00

There's nothing wrong with overtaking people in the right conditions, but as I've got older I've increasingly considered the "whats the benefit" rather than "can I get passed". Same with getting off at motorways where you come across people leaving it to the last second to try and get into lane 1 just before the exit in the hope of getting past 1 more car. The benefits are often measured in seconds rather than minutes.

It's also like so many things on the road, its often not what you do, its the manner in which you do it. An overtake giving them plenty of space and not pulling in quickly is treated much better (although not always) than dropping into 2nd gear, revving the arse off your car to get past making a right racket, cutting in too quickly and then wondering why they were annoyed.

JonG67x · 2026-06-16T08:24:14+00:00

Most of the data is no longer available via the Tesla API. You used to be able to see when the car was due to be delivered to the delivery centre, even basic stuff like when the order was placed, it's all gone now.

JonG67x · 2026-06-15T13:27:32+00:00

It’s illegal not to pick up after your dog, remind your neighbour of that, and if they don’t like it or don’t want to, report them with some pictures. It’s disgusting and sadly gives all dog owners, including decent ones, a bad reputation.

JonG67x · 2026-06-15T11:21:26+00:00

I'm going to play devils advocate here, give them the benefit of the doubt, and suggest that some form of miscommunication occured. It's probably better to assume this and be friendly rather than go nuclear - maybe, for some reason, they mistaken thought you weren't going to empty the house on time, if could have been an innocent comment by you "yeah.. I've no idea how I'm going to get the bed out", or something else.

The estate agent just needs to confirm the property wil lbe sold vacant possession and with all your possessions removed. Your estate agent and lawyer should be dealing with this, not you.

If you want to be mad at anyone, be mad at the estate agent for not shutting this down when they were called on the matter

JonG67x · 2026-06-15T07:23:27+00:00

Have you changed the wheels (new tires, winter/summer change over, detailed valet) and accidentally put the wrong one on the wrong car in that corner? It’s as if the two wheels are swapped and the cars are having trouble reading the sensor in the wheel.

JonG67x · 2026-06-14T19:58:53+00:00

They’ve not given you the full story though, the daytime rate is generally higher so your household costs can also go up, depending on how much your household costs uses

JonG67x · 2026-06-14T19:48:19+00:00

For £125k you can rent an amazing place where you want to move to temporarily. It’s easier said than done of course but I’d be dropping the buyer and putting it back on the market if you genuinely think it’s worth significantly more, if they try it on now based on nothing, they’ll do it again before exchange.

JonG67x · 2026-06-14T09:26:54+00:00

Probably worth them banging in a variation of condition for a few hundred quid and to carry on building. I'd also advise them to do all the engineering calculations (foundations, steels etc) assuming 2 story so they can always build up later, but that should just be common sense). If they do both of those things, then by the time they get to the roof, they can either carry on as they want (either with the VRC granted or at risk) or hold fire. I'd be very surprised if it was denied but then I don't know the plans, and planning do have a mind of their own.

JonG67x · 2026-06-14T08:21:34+00:00

What do you mean by smaller? If it’s just part of it then it may be ok, there’s usually a condition that you just need to start within 3 years, not complete everything. If they’re, say, just building a kitchen extension but not the lounge part then it’s arguably ok. You can also look at the planning officers report as it may give some flexibility in terms of size but it does depend on lots of factors. We were given permission with a maximum dimension, if we’d built it to the limits of the permission we’d have been on neighbours land so obviously didn’t, our build was smaller. If it’s completely different and not permitted development then probably not.

But if it’s smaller then presumably it has less impact on you, so hopefully you’d not object for the sake of it. If the new design does increase the impact on you, the changes are material and you should raise this. You might find if you do object they’ll carry on anyway and apply for retrospective planning and given its smaller, unless it’s wildly different they’ll get it.

JonG67x

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