diff --git a/files/ansible-playbooks/sot-updater.yml b/files/ansible-playbooks/sot-updater.yml
index 8d2786b..8c73f58 100644
--- a/files/ansible-playbooks/sot-updater.yml
+++ b/files/ansible-playbooks/sot-updater.yml
@@ -198,25 +198,24 @@
       failed_when: false
       ignore_errors: true
 
-    - name: Dev1 | Normalize banner → X.X.X-rYYYY (strict)
+    - name: Dev1 | Normalize banner (use shell string ops)
       delegate_to: localhost
-      set_fact:
-        dev1_fw_clean: >-
-          {{
-            (
-              dev1_banner.stdout | default('') | trim
-              | regex_replace('\\s*\\|.*$', '')                     # drop trailing " | …"
-              | regex_replace('(^|\\s)rev\\s+([0-9]+)', '\\1-r\\2') # only lowercase 'rev' with word boundary-ish
-              | regex_search('[0-9]+\\.[0-9]+\\.[0-9]+-r[0-9]+')    # keep exactly X.X.X-rYYYY
-            )
-            | default('', true)
-            | trim
-          }}
+      shell: |
+        line="{{ dev1_banner.stdout | trim }}"
+        # cut at the first pipe if present
+        line="${line%%|*}"
+        # replace the first space before 'rev' with a dash
+        line="${line/ rev /-r}"
+        # remove any extra spaces after the number
+        line="$(echo "$line" | awk '{print $1}')"
+        echo "$line"
+      register: dev1_fw_clean_shell
+      changed_when: false
 
     - name: Debug Dev1 normalized firmware
       delegate_to: localhost
       debug:
-        msg: "Dev1 fw_version → {{ dev1_fw_clean | default('N/A') }}"
+        msg: "Dev1 fw_version  {{ dev1_fw_clean_shell | default('N/A') }}"
 
     - name: Publish Dev1 fw_version
       delegate_to: localhost