(Need Help) Migrate off Vera
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Current Hardware: Vera Plus, HA in Synology Docker
Firmware: v.7.0.31
Available SW / HW: Multiple RPi's, Z-Way UZB w/lic, Z-Way Razberry board
ZWave Devices: 30-ish early gen GE/Jasco light switchesIssue: I've gotten myself into a spot that I'm not quite sure how to safely get out of, and I'm hoping someone on this forum can help me. I would ultimately like to get to a point where I'm using Home Assistant in Docker on my Synology as my UI for turning on/off lights, but I've read the "Pyramid" post and am open to other options. I can currently ssh to my Vera Plus, but cannot access the web UI (get a 403).
How I Got Here:
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Back in Feb'19, I followed @rafale77's instructions to take my Vera off the grid. At the time, it looks like I was running version 7.0.26. This worked great.
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I installed HA in Docker w/socat on my Synology NAS, and things were running perfectly for a long time, but I was forced to upgrade HA in tandem with an upgrade to the iOS app. So, I chose to use a Docker build that already had socat built in.
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Then, I saw that there was a new version of firmware for Vera, and decided to upgrade to Firmware v.7.0.31 around Apr'20. This was a mistake in a big way, and I sought help on the new version of the Vera forums, which eventually led me here. I also re-ran @rafale77's mod files on the newer firmware version, and I think I shot myself in the foot there. I knew it was gamble, and take full responsibility. I've learned a lot and have benefitted greatly from his work.
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I tried to run the Nuke Vera script, as that sounded exactly what I needed my Vera to do - take commands from HA and nothing else. This seems to be working, but I'm unable to control my network with HA.
Additional things I've done / tried / worry about:
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Validated that HA is sending and receiving responses via socat from the Vera in the HA openzwave logs. I see logs that seem to indicate that a message is sent, and a message comes back from the Vera, but lights don't turn on/off. I've clicked the Heal Network, Test, Network, and Soft Reset buttons in the HA UI too.
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I purchased a razberry. Then, I ordered a UZB, after seeing this post about migrating, assuming that it was best to try to follow that guide verbatim and not have to exclude / include a bunch of devices. I'm leaning towards completely divorcing myself from Vera.
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I'm not 100% sure I have a valid backup of my zwave config. There are no dongle.dump files in /etc/cmh whch may make sense, as I was using after an external drive w/extroot. I do have some in ./mnt/sda2/etc/cmh/. It looks like I've got extra, actually, as it looks like I probably made backup copies some where along the way.
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I shutdown the Vera and removed the extroot drive, reversed all of the changes Nuke-Vera made to the init.d start up files, and rebooted. I did this because the migration guide mentions to set the path of the z-way UZB in the UI settings, and I couldn't find how do this over ssh. I also don't know how to backup the zwave config from the CLI and was going to do this via the UI. As mentioned previously, I'm getting a 403 "Access Denied" message. Looking at logs and the config for lighthttpd, I think it is trying to follow some symbolic links that no longer exist, but I'm hoping I can get out of the mess I've made without troubleshooting and solving the HTTPD issues. I think I just need to know how to follow the steps to clone the Vera to the UZB via the CLI?
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I found a command online method that allows me to view the zwave keys with hexdump. The keys on the device are different than the keys in on the drive that i was using for extroot, and that concerns me a bit.
If you've made this far, thanks for your time! Does anyone know the best way for me to get myself out of the mess I've got myself into?
All the best,
Michael -
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Current Hardware: Vera Plus, HA in Synology Docker
Firmware: v.7.0.31
Available SW / HW: Multiple RPi's, Z-Way UZB w/lic, Z-Way Razberry board
ZWave Devices: 30-ish early gen GE/Jasco light switchesIssue: I've gotten myself into a spot that I'm not quite sure how to safely get out of, and I'm hoping someone on this forum can help me. I would ultimately like to get to a point where I'm using Home Assistant in Docker on my Synology as my UI for turning on/off lights, but I've read the "Pyramid" post and am open to other options. I can currently ssh to my Vera Plus, but cannot access the web UI (get a 403).
How I Got Here:
-
Back in Feb'19, I followed @rafale77's instructions to take my Vera off the grid. At the time, it looks like I was running version 7.0.26. This worked great.
-
I installed HA in Docker w/socat on my Synology NAS, and things were running perfectly for a long time, but I was forced to upgrade HA in tandem with an upgrade to the iOS app. So, I chose to use a Docker build that already had socat built in.
-
Then, I saw that there was a new version of firmware for Vera, and decided to upgrade to Firmware v.7.0.31 around Apr'20. This was a mistake in a big way, and I sought help on the new version of the Vera forums, which eventually led me here. I also re-ran @rafale77's mod files on the newer firmware version, and I think I shot myself in the foot there. I knew it was gamble, and take full responsibility. I've learned a lot and have benefitted greatly from his work.
-
I tried to run the Nuke Vera script, as that sounded exactly what I needed my Vera to do - take commands from HA and nothing else. This seems to be working, but I'm unable to control my network with HA.
Additional things I've done / tried / worry about:
-
Validated that HA is sending and receiving responses via socat from the Vera in the HA openzwave logs. I see logs that seem to indicate that a message is sent, and a message comes back from the Vera, but lights don't turn on/off. I've clicked the Heal Network, Test, Network, and Soft Reset buttons in the HA UI too.
-
I purchased a razberry. Then, I ordered a UZB, after seeing this post about migrating, assuming that it was best to try to follow that guide verbatim and not have to exclude / include a bunch of devices. I'm leaning towards completely divorcing myself from Vera.
-
I'm not 100% sure I have a valid backup of my zwave config. There are no dongle.dump files in /etc/cmh whch may make sense, as I was using after an external drive w/extroot. I do have some in ./mnt/sda2/etc/cmh/. It looks like I've got extra, actually, as it looks like I probably made backup copies some where along the way.
-
I shutdown the Vera and removed the extroot drive, reversed all of the changes Nuke-Vera made to the init.d start up files, and rebooted. I did this because the migration guide mentions to set the path of the z-way UZB in the UI settings, and I couldn't find how do this over ssh. I also don't know how to backup the zwave config from the CLI and was going to do this via the UI. As mentioned previously, I'm getting a 403 "Access Denied" message. Looking at logs and the config for lighthttpd, I think it is trying to follow some symbolic links that no longer exist, but I'm hoping I can get out of the mess I've made without troubleshooting and solving the HTTPD issues. I think I just need to know how to follow the steps to clone the Vera to the UZB via the CLI?
-
I found a command online method that allows me to view the zwave keys with hexdump. The keys on the device are different than the keys in on the drive that i was using for extroot, and that concerns me a bit.
If you've made this far, thanks for your time! Does anyone know the best way for me to get myself out of the mess I've got myself into?
All the best,
MichaelWelcome Michael,
You have a pretty convoluted story here. I think the best recommendation I can give you given the fact that you "only" have 30 zwave devices is to start from scratch using z-way since you already have a license for it.
There are other options: as you have already explored, making the vera a dump wireless bridge for HA but even I have given up on this, not so much because it doesn't work, it actually worked quite well, but because of the maintenance around it and the brick prone nature of these arm based embedded devices.
Once you have moved your devices on z-way, you have several options to bind them to home assistant:- Homebridge which has a z-way component allowing your z-way devices to all show up on Homekit. You can then use the HA Homekit component to connect them.
- Wait for the openzwave integration of z-way which is work in progress from the z-way team and will enable any controller using openzwave to talk to the z-way API.
As for your problem, as I was upgrading my vera firmware, I started noticing what I suspected was active efforts to undermine my improvement hacks to the vera, breaking functionalities etc and accelerated my abandonment of the platform. There are of course other complications to the migrations as well with the vera zwave backup/recovery tool not supporting newer versions of zwave SDK and causing the migration to fail. Not sure how you lost your zwave network config backups either and how up to date they maybe but again, for 30 devices, I would just start from scratch. If it was more, I would probably spend more time trying to recover the network data.
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Welcome Michael,
You have a pretty convoluted story here. I think the best recommendation I can give you given the fact that you "only" have 30 zwave devices is to start from scratch using z-way since you already have a license for it.
There are other options: as you have already explored, making the vera a dump wireless bridge for HA but even I have given up on this, not so much because it doesn't work, it actually worked quite well, but because of the maintenance around it and the brick prone nature of these arm based embedded devices.
Once you have moved your devices on z-way, you have several options to bind them to home assistant:- Homebridge which has a z-way component allowing your z-way devices to all show up on Homekit. You can then use the HA Homekit component to connect them.
- Wait for the openzwave integration of z-way which is work in progress from the z-way team and will enable any controller using openzwave to talk to the z-way API.
As for your problem, as I was upgrading my vera firmware, I started noticing what I suspected was active efforts to undermine my improvement hacks to the vera, breaking functionalities etc and accelerated my abandonment of the platform. There are of course other complications to the migrations as well with the vera zwave backup/recovery tool not supporting newer versions of zwave SDK and causing the migration to fail. Not sure how you lost your zwave network config backups either and how up to date they maybe but again, for 30 devices, I would just start from scratch. If it was more, I would probably spend more time trying to recover the network data.
@rafale77 said in (Need Help) Migrate off Vera:
I think the best recommendation I can give you given the fact that you "only" have 30 zwave devices is to start from scratch using z-way since you already have a license for it.
For less complicated reasons I abandoned Vera with about this many devices. It wasn’t awful to start from scratch but I’m not going to lie and say it wasn’t frustrating to have to get to that point. I moved all zwave devices to Zway with only a few hiccups.
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Thanks a million for the quick reply! I was afraid that a total rebuild might be required. I was hoping to avoid it as I've had to replace a GE/Jasco switch or two, and it's never worked smoothly. But, my fingers are crossed that my troubles were coming from the Vera and not the GE switches. Almost all switches are early generation GE 1272#: paddle switch, dimmer, fan control or add-on/3way. I'll start the process and update this post with my experience. Thanks again!
I forgot to mention, that along with the z-way UZB and razzbery devices, I also have a Aeotec Z-Stick Gen5. I've never used any of those three. I had early intentions of using the Aeotec as backup, but never got around to it. I've got some more research to do, but hopefully I can build something that is resilient out of all these parts.
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@rafale77 said in (Need Help) Migrate off Vera:
I think the best recommendation I can give you given the fact that you "only" have 30 zwave devices is to start from scratch using z-way since you already have a license for it.
For less complicated reasons I abandoned Vera with about this many devices. It wasn’t awful to start from scratch but I’m not going to lie and say it wasn’t frustrating to have to get to that point. I moved all zwave devices to Zway with only a few hiccups.
@cubs2b23 said in (Need Help) Migrate off Vera:
For less complicated reasons I abandoned Vera with about this many devices. It wasn’t awful to start from scratch but I’m not going to lie and say it wasn’t frustrating to have to get to that point. I moved all zwave devices to Zway with only a few hiccups.
Frustrating for sure. So, much so, that I've been avoiding fixing my broken set up for quite a long time .... thanks for sharing your experience!
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I did the full rebuild as well, but i did a smooth transition using VeraBridge to take them over slowly while still having the automation operational (to OpenLuup that is), first the Reactorsensors, then devices.
One thing before you start, check that the firmware on the UZB is up to date! Mine had some very old firmware installed, which made some strange errors combined with the latest Z-Way version which assumes the UZB firmware has latest capabilities. And remember to verify that the FW is "Normal" type, Not "Bridge".
See this post for the route i had to go to update UZB.
Haven't regreted this for a second, Z-way works great! including/excluding works so much better than in vera, and you can monitor the interview process when you do it as well.
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Thanks for the additional advice, much appreciated! Another thing I should note is that I really never got around to “automation”, other than some simple experimentation. In fact, the only event that was ever implemented long term was turning off/on outside lights at sun rise/sun set. So, at least from that perspective, there isn’t much loss or rework to do. The number one use case is allowing my wife to turn lights on/off remotely using HA iOS app. I’ve taught her how to do this via VPN to the home, and have also used the Nabu Casa Remote UI option too, which is arguably less secure, but I wanted to support the project. I digress. It sounds like the work in front of me is:
- getting z-way installed
- getting the correct UZB firmware installed
- walking the house and migrating each light switch
- setting up the integration between HA, homebridge, and z-way
- (future) research and make use of the extra razzberry and/or aoetec to create some sort of fault tolerance. (Maybe even mod the razzberry with external antennas).
- (future) figure what to do with the Vera plus...use it as a personal HW hacking project, factory reset and sell on eBay, or donate to someone who is still fighting for that cause.
- (future) pick up a mini-pc to replace rPI’s for a more robust setup. My Plex setup is running off an older i5 NUC, which I’ve considered upgrading, but it would be overkill if repurposed for this task ... I’m going to need something centrally located.
I’m happy to have found this forum, look forward to jumping back in to things, and hopefully I’ll be able to help the next person that gets “stuck” like me.
All the best,
Michael -
Sorry for not being of much more help. I know how painful it is to start from scratch and it is exactly what I was trying to avoid. It is also a big benefit of z-wave vs other protocols had it not been because of vera's broken implementation. It is just that I can't really get into how to recover your vera and it is likely a lot more work than to start fresh.
When/if you get more into the automation part, you will start running into pretty steep learning curves with HA too which is why I vastly prefer doing it on openLuup and others with HA use node-red. @toggledbits is also working on an alternative: Super reactor. The one ring to rule them all. Which I forgot to mention in my previous post.
PS: I tend to recommend against using the aeotec stick because of its specificities. It has no firmware upgrade path so you are stuck on an old SDK version. They released a new stick with a new SDK but the firmware is not upgradable. I have one and it's been a brick. Reminds me that I should probably get rid of it.
