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Hi
Go with me here... I recently pick up a unresponsive Vera Secure from eBay for next to nothing, thinking I’d could have a go at trying to restore it, if only as a play thing..
Situation - The power led comes on, but the internet and service leds just flash - no connection made (and even using a direct cable and Wireshark, I can’t see an arp request being made to see if it has a default in address) - I’ve also tried various reset button combinations - no luck.
Perhaps this post is a long shot, but seeing so many familiar ex Micasaverde/Vera forum names - i thought I’d at least ask - just in case anyone had any guidance/advice etc. I could use ..
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Hi!
I was tipped off about this forum while bitching about my Vera on the Vera forum, as I had grown accustomed to over the years. I know that's not very nice, but that thing brings out the worst in me (and has even driven me to drink on occasions 😉 )!
Anyway, how about a little intro in case anyone is actually interested? I did odd jobs, saved up for and built my first PC from components by the time I was 15 (back when you had to know how to get around a DOS prompt and a 120Mb hard drive was a big deal). Within 6 months I had my own BBS up and running. The internet wasn't really a thing back then -- did AOL really count? I only really discovered home automation almost a decade later, again before it had really taken off. Back then I was using X10 because it was still one of the only consumer options and I had no electronics background. Over the years I have experimented with several home automation technologies, 90% of them ending up as useless scrap and a waste of money. Today I feel like not much has changed, but things are moving in the right direction (wide scale adoption -> more money invested in improving tech to try to get us to part with our money, am I right?). I've never really had the funds to go all out or to get the more expensive gear, but I've found some products that have been worth sticking with -- namely my Elk-M1G and one or two other obscure devices. I recently was "renovicted" during the pandemic and decided to move from my modest apartment in the city to a house out in the woods in the middle of nowhere.
So here I am, with an almost clean slate, looking to set this place up better than ever. The internet access sucks out here, but the house is mine to do what I will with it. I envision a keyless entry system even better than the last one I devised, walls that literally talk and eventually even roboticized structure & furniture (eg. Aquarium lids that rise for maintenance, hidden doors that slide open, a table that transforms into a bar, etc.).
For the moment, though, I'd like to figure out how to replace this *&$%ing Vera. Funds have been tight lately, but at the moment I have several pieces of hardware I can start with: The Elk (as mentioned), ~20 LIFX bulbs/strips, a handful of Amazon Echos, a few Zwave devices, some IR and audio stuff, the Vera, a few other odds and ends.
Ultimately, I'd like to set up a low-power system like a NUC or something that will always be on, running automation as well as handling audio (most likely multi-zoned). I built my last PC as a gaming PC, but I can use it to experiment until I'm ready to purchase an HA system.
Where do I start if I want to learn about OpenLuup? I skimmed through the forums, but they seem quite advanced and are a little beyond my abilities. I do CAD/CAM, not programming, unfortunately!
Thanks!! -
654a0b44-6cec-4466-8701-3566067abbd0-image.jpeg https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fpanic.com%2Fblog%2Fpanic-status-board-2013-edition%2F&psig=AOvVaw1ERsyah34ZkmLnpWaYLgu-&ust=1600418906446000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCODol5Xn7-sCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE
I’ve always liked the idea of having a screen, located somewhere in the house that would allow me to see the status of pretty much everything. (Hardware wise I’m just think of a basic Rasp Pi, fixed to a vesa mount, screwed to the back of an old monitor screen)
I’ve tried a number of tools/apps over the years, one of which was PanicBoard (where the above image comes from) - which seemed to have some potential, but the owners stopped developing/investing in that a while back.
What are people using ?
Is there something, perhaps a single tool/app that this community would collectively support/promote, one that no matter what HA you used, you could submit information to and have it displayed ?
**** Just to be clear, I’m referring to status/information boards, not a touch based, control board where you can turn things on/off etc..***
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General discussion on all things MQTT.
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Not sure this is in quite the right place (again) but I have a device that exists in z-way that I simply cannot remove. It seems to be a zombie. I have no idea what it was.
It claims to be a routing binary sensor that has not woken up since August
I go through the 'Only do this if your device is broken' and it simply will not go.
Any ideas (apart from ignore it)?Cheers
C
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Hi all
Possibly a long shot - but does anyone know of a way, (maybe you have some code or know of an app) that can help you discover the IR codes of a device when you’ve lost the remote?
Looking online there seems to be a growing number of IR banks, yet I can’t find anything on the market that could cycle through a huge set of different codes (e.g just the power on/off) to let me know which ones are compatible ?
When you consider so many things these days are made in the same place, and often thing can just be re/badges versions of other items - it’s likely that a sets of codes for one branded product will work in the most part with another ..
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Since one member asked at one point about the "front end" and "back end", I drew this showing the controller from the base to the tip along with what I have found to be the best options from my testing. Almost every controller will try to integrate all elements, especially commercial ones but... they all have strengths and weaknesses so if one can have a medley of the best ones...
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Hi all. Looking for some guidance as ever
This
luup.inet.wget('https://api.telegram.org/bot1225075966:AAHS5rwhCpOx0hwq3mOnNjtCSKiDeAS6B4/sendMessage?chat_id=@Coalport58&text=House mode is home')Works fine
This
luup.inet.wget('https://api.telegram.org/bot1225075966:AAHS5rwhCpOx0hwq3mOnNjtCSKiDeAS6B4/sendMessage?chat_id=@Coalport58&text=House mode is Home')Throws a 400 error:
openLuup.client:: WGET error status: 400I have munged the bot key to post here, but just changing the 'h' to 'H' breaks it. Any ideas why?
C
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We are a smart home startup based in England, we are looking for a co-founder/advisor who is good at iot software development.
Many thanks -
What are the projects you're working on?
Summer is over, and that (unfortunately) means more time indoor and (luckily) more time to build things.
I have almost nothing in my backlog and it's boring 🙂
I appreciate a couple of (crazy) ideas.
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Is there one? I know TTS is working but suddenly woke up at 0300....
...or does it just use Vera. That seems unlikely from what I know of the architectureTIA
C
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So, I'm trying to execute the same code I had for years to mount my synology NAS for datamine (I know, old stuff), but I'm getting this:
mount -o user=vera,pass=pass //192.168.1.26/Backups/Vera/datamine /datamine mount: mounting //192.168.1.26/Backups/Vera/datamine on /datamine failed: No such deviceIt used to work until 3 days ago, then I had to factory reset my Vera Plus and now this. Packages are OK:
opkg update opkg --force-depends install kmod-fs-cifs opkg --force-depends install kmod-nls-utf8 kmod-nls-base kmod-crypto-hmac kmod-crypto-md5 kmod-crypto-miscI've already trying anything, with no luck. Any ideas?
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My quest to build a central usb to serial server (hub) continues 🙂
The goal is to make a core set of usually local devices available to other HA controllers over the network to use (via Ser2net).
Current list includes ..
Current Cost Energy Monitor Rfxtrx433 Transceiver Bluegiga BLED112 BluetoothNext up is a Z-Wave Module ZMEEUZB1
What other devices do people think would be a good to add to the ‘hub’ ?
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I just noticed from other forums that IFTTT has started some serious payment plans with a very restrictive free tier.
IFTTT Plans - IFTTT Plans - IFTTTFind the right plan for Pros, Developers and Businesses.
This was writing on the wall from the beginning and why I tested it for the entirety of 5mins and requested to delete my account back 3 years ago. The idea to me was mind boggling: Having a multitude of platform API integrated by them in the cloud so every signal and command would go through them. This outside dependency, could not remain free and would offer poor reliability security/privacy and performance by design and is intrinsically inefficient. Now if you want to continue using it, you get to pay for it.. What a waste of time and energy...
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Sorry for the long title 🙂
After building, for the want of a better term, a “Ser2net Server” in order to share various USB/Serial devices With Vera/Node-Red etc.
I’ve recently added Bluegiga’s BLED112 Bluetooth (https://www.silabs.com/wireless/bluetooth/bluegiga-low-energy-legacy-modules/device.bled112) with the goal that I can integrate all the personal bluetooth devices worn in the house (i.e fitness trackers etc.) into some sort of presence awareness set-up.
All my other usb/serial devices, such as a Current Cost energy monitor, DSC Alarm Panel and a RFCOM Rfxrtx433 transceiver which are connected are all working well, and with the ability to share each device I’ve been able to integrate them into the different HA solutions I use.
So getting back to the point of my post, and with the BLED112 connected, I can access it via the pi no problem and using this .py script (. https://github.com/jrowberg/bglib/blob/master/Python/Examples/bled112_scanner.py) - so I can do a few things when logged into the pi, but what I’m struggling with at the moment is how to get clean information out via ser2net. Currently everything looks jumbled/corrupted and I’ve tried to change the Ser2net serial/connection settings for it but that hasn’t resulted in any noticeable improvements .
Ser2net .conf settings.
4004:raw:0:/dev/ttyACM0:115200 8DATABITS NONE 1STOPBIT max-connections=4Is anyone on this forum using the BLED112 in any capacity today ? Ideally with Vera/OpenLuup ?
Screenshot below of what’s seen via telnet (Remoter is the iOS app I’m using , but the N065H is a model of fitness band my wife has.
C8FF65D2-9BA7-4696-B085-64170A42D3E1.jpeg
And attached below is what seen from the pi when the python script is run..
0E3B2939-3751-4804-9599-835BC9741524.jpeg
Within the above you have the MAC of the Bluetooth device, plus the strength of the signal, so the makings of some good presence/range automation capabilities 🤩
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General Information - I thought some of the regulars would like to register. Links down the bottom,Interesting that they are looking into the failures....wonder if there will be any mention of you know what.....
Z-Wave Works With Amazon, Google, Samsung, Apple, Comcast Virtual Conference
by DrZWave
Silicon Labs is hosting what was intended to be an in-person conference in Austin Texas but is now a virtual online conference on IoT ecosystems - the Works With Smart Home Developer Event September 9-10. The best part is it is now FREE to attend any of the in-depth technical sessions and you don't have to wear a mask. The downside is that we don't get to experience all that great music down in Austin - well, there's always next year!Virtual IoT Works With EcoSystems from Google, Amazon, Apple for Z-Wave development engineers
Works With Smart Home Developer Event - Silicon Labs Works With Smart Home Developer Event - Silicon Labs
Attend Works With Smart Home Developer Event virtually to learn how to work with ecosystem partners to connect devices, platforms and protocols. Live or on-demand.
I am hosting the Z-Wave track and will be making several presentations including a detailed look at Silicon Labs latest release of Simplicity Studio V5 which just came out yesterday. We'll also have presentations on developing Z-Wave Smart Hubs and Z-Wave Certification. I'll also be describing some IoT failures - you learn more from your failures than your successes. We have speakers and engineers from all of the ecosystem partners, not just Silicon Labs folks. Learn from the experts from across the industry!What is Works With 2020? The smart home developer’s virtual event where you will have the opportunity to interact with our ecosystem partners from Amazon, Google, Samsung, and Z-Wave to connect devices, platforms and protocols and be able to immerse yourself in keynotes, a panel discussion on Project CHIP, hands-on, and technical sessions led by smart home engineers who are building the latest advanced IoT devices. The Works With event is live, all-online, free of charge, and you can join from anywhere around the world.
Works With Z-Wave Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung IoT SmartHome conference 2020
Click here to Register Today and feel free to forward to the rest of your team.Here’s an overview of what you won’t want to miss:
Specialized Engineer-Led Tracks – Educational sessions and technical training designed for engineers, executives, developers, business development and product managers.
Hands-On Workshops More than 12 workshops and hands-on sessions to give you experience, knowledge and confidence to develop and accelerate smart home development.
One-on-One Developer Meetings – Schedule a meeting with Silicon Labs or an ecosystem partner to get 1:1 technical guidance.
Join me in September and learn how to smoothly get your IoT device plugged into any and all of the ecosystem partners. Register today, it's totally free and you can join from anywhere in the world. See you September!
DrZWave | July 30, 2020 at 8:22 pm | Tags: WorksWith | Categories: 700 series, Best Practice, Coding Guides, News, Presentations, Summit, Z-Wave Controllers, Z-Wave Developers, Z-Wave Mesh, Z-Wave Network, Z-Wave Slaves, Z-Wave Users | URL: https://wp.me/p6tsK6-o5
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DrZWave / Jul 30, 2020 Z-Wave Works With Amazon, Google, Samsung, Apple, Comcast Virtual Conference Z-Wave Works With Amazon, Google, Samsung, Apple, Comcast Virtual Conference
Works With Amazon, Google, Apple and more Smart Home EcoSystem vendors. Learn how to design your product to work with these 800 pound gorillas
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Derick Schweppe Mycroft – Open Source Voice Assistant - Mycroft Mycroft – Open Source Voice Assistant - Mycroft
Mycroft is an open source voice assistant, that can be installed on Linux, Raspberry Pi, or on the Mark 1 hardware device. Our opensource skills are written in Python and we have a very friendly developer community. Come join us!
I have been following this project with great interest and am thinking about testing it. Eventually, I believe this is the way to go and will eliminate all the GH and Echo ecosystems.
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I picked up a new WD SSD for practically next to nothing (wow, have prices on storage dropped) and want to replace the SDC in omy HS4 Pi that I added Node Red to.
I know that a thread existed on this, perhaps on the Vera forum before it was censored. I can't find it here can anyone point me in the right direction.
Thks -
In the pseudo code below settimeout always times out after ten seconds. I can set the timeout to any value and it always times out when it reaches the set value. But why? The transmit is fine and the data is rx'ed OK exactly as expected. ie the expected data is always the length expected. There are no partial results.
The only way to get it to work is to set the timeout to zero. ie no timeout delay and use socket.select to become a defacto timeout. It works great after that.
-- Socket library version is: LuaSocket 3.0-rc1 m_tcp = socket.tcp() m_tcp:settimeout(10) -- set to zero when using socket.select fix m_tcp:connect('ip_address', port) repeat -- send request local txMsg('Data request. Hi what is the hardware status? (ongoing)') m_tcp:send(txMsg) -- THIS fixs the problem as long as m_tcp:settimeout() is set to zero -- Wait on the socket for 50 msec for rx data. -- The rx data will arrive in the rx buffer in less than this time. -- *** local rxlist, _, selectStatus = socket.select ({m_tcp}, nil, 0.05) -- get the response to the request -- get the 16 byte data header, that contains the length of the payload local expectedLength = 16 local s, status, partial = m_tcp:receive(expectedLength) if (status == "timeout") then print('timeout') end -- the returned data amount varies but we know what it is from the header just rx'ed expectedLength = s[1] s, status, partial = m_tcp:receive(expectedLength) -- do this every 0.5 sec; -- we're regularly updating the status of a hardware device luup.sleep(500) until false
Recover an ‘assumed bricked’ Vera Secure
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Hi
Go with me here... I recently pick up a unresponsive Vera Secure from eBay for next to nothing, thinking I’d could have a go at trying to restore it, if only as a play thing..
Situation - The power led comes on, but the internet and service leds just flash - no connection made (and even using a direct cable and Wireshark, I can’t see an arp request being made to see if it has a default in address) - I’ve also tried various reset button combinations - no luck.
Perhaps this post is a long shot, but seeing so many familiar ex Micasaverde/Vera forum names - i thought I’d at least ask - just in case anyone had any guidance/advice etc. I could use ..
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All too familiar with this situation unfortunately. This sounds like one of two things: A storage flash corruption due to flash cells failure or a error made in one of the boot script which is so bad that it is also preventing the recovery script from working.
The only way to recover is to push a full firmware refresh through TFTP and mios has a tool to do this. You will need to set the device in bootloader mode by powering it up while maintaining the the reset button pressed and connect to it using the mios tool under windows XP. The problem is to procure the vera secure firmware image which I don't have. I only have it for the vera plus and edge and the plus is significantly different as it uses a different zwave chip and storage partitioning structure. -
Many Thanks @rafale77 ,
I can recall years back doing a firmware recovery on my Vera lite, or it might have been a Vera 3 (long term Vera user here !!) - i wasn’t sure if the process would be similar or not.
I can set up a TFTP server (I think my QNAP NAS has that option), and it sounds like getting it into bootloader mode is reasonably straight forward to do, the challenge is getting the image, now when you say ‘procure’ do you mean it has to be purchased from MIOS? When you created your for the Edge and Plus, did you do them yourself (extract the image), or was it something you had to get from MIOS too ?
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Back then I actually opened a ticket to request the image from vera support since it is oddly not published anywhere and they are strangely reluctant to make it easily available,
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Hi @rafale77 -
Hope all is well and that you had a good Xmas etc..
I’m resurrecting an old post to see if I can give things another go, but so as I’ve not been able to get the VeraSecure to show very much (if any life) to connect to the network.
With that in mind, have you tried any of the following ‘debricking’ techniques?
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Honestly I have kind of given up tinkering with all forms of "embedded" devices which rely on a bootloader. They are just much too fragile and yes these are the various features/methods to access the bootloader. I have jettisoned all my veras to the trash where they belong and even deleted all my backups and the windows XP VM I used to unbrick my veras. It's just not worth the time and effort. I moved all my work to BIOS based devices which much less brick-able and as I found out more flexible, cheaper and more power efficient. Saves me a lot of time too.
Happy New Year to you too!
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Thanks @rafale77 i totally understand
can I ask what you’re using now that’s “ much less brick-able and as I found out more flexible, cheaper and more power efficient ‘ -
that sounds like the holy grail !!
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I am using a small gemini lake mini PC with a Celeron N4100 CPU. Cost me about $100 with 4GB of RAM and a 64GB SSD. It dual boots windows 10 and ubuntu server which is what I am using for home automation. I used it as my "vera" for a couple of years, running the vera UI (i.e firmware) on it through QEMU. It now runs z-way server. Running exactly the same programs and plugging it through a POE splitter next to a rPi3B, I realized it consumes half the power of the rPi while running 2-3x faster and is naturally cooler. When I did the math of having the storage and the case etc... I also came to realize that it is cheaper than any rPi. And the flexibility of course comes from the ability to run any OS you want.
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Interesting set up - I’ve lost count of the different setups I’ve tried over the years, from mini pcs, rPis, VM, Dockers etc. all of which had their merits, but I often found myself back under the hood of my Vera trying to make something work.
It was evident early on that Vera was never going to do everything - hence looking back (7 years ago) I was trying to work out what ‘combo’ would be best - https://community.getvera.com/t/the-ultimate-partner-for-vera/175184 - and that journey continues.
Today it’s
2 x VeraPlus,
2 x Raspberry Pi 3 B+ (Lua, z-way, Node-Red, USB/Serial Bridges for RFXTRX433, DSC Alarm, CurrentCost Energy)
2 x QNAP NAS (Running 1 x Homebridge (Docker) , 1 x Openluup ** (Docker) and is the SMB/CIFS target for any/all storage needs** - more for interest/fun as the UI is terrible on my iPad (which is my primary device)
But.. no matter what I do, my Vera and it’s UI continues to remain my focal point (primary controller) ..
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Wow, pretty elaborate... I have tinkered quite a bit too and have finally settled on this:
1x Mini PC which has now become a radio bridge with 1 uzb and 1 conbee stick(it was a hacked vera but I got tired of the fragility of the platform)
1x QNAP NAS as my NVR with 16 IPCams, main storage server with 3 VMs:
a. home-assistant (my own version for zigbee and video recognition)/pihole/grafana
b. pfSense with dual WAN (1.5Gbit internet)
c. openLuup/Z-way/habridge/HomeKitbridge
1x macOS desktop which is my main pc and on which I run sonos-http-api and provides a local TTS server using the Siri voice.I tried docker containers too but found their benefits were not worth the management complexity they were adding. I tried the vera obviously and a number of rPi2 and 3B+ and at the end regrouped them all into the setup above. I could actually merge the programs of the two VMs into one these days since there is no longer any reason to keep them separate. Back a while ago I had some nodejs version conflicts which I could have addressed differently than creating a new VM. openLuup is at the center of everything... and my only cloud dependency for home control is the amazon echo voice resolution. I even run them with no cloud hosted "skills" to eliminate cloud to cloud schemes.
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Looks a nice set up..
Oh, you’ve just reminded me, I use my QNAP as a NVR too (6 cameras), plus I also have ‘ sonos-http-api’ running (using Joanna), and PiHole’ too.
Connectivity wise, I use my UniFi home set up for VPN, and it has 3 networks, (I) Private LAN, (ii) Guest (Internet Only) for visitors & IoT devices (Alexa/Ring etc) and (iii) Video (IP TV) - I’d really like to embed my UniFi controller into my HA much more, as it has a lot of useful info, energy usage (via PoE), presence awareness via access points. Currently I just do some json calls here and there.
OpenWrt Debricking Guide
