I've been using Vera Plus for nearly 10 years now but it's time to move on. On top of that we've moved from the previous house whereupon I took all the Z-wave door sensors, locks and switches with me and reverted the pool to manual control, grabbing the Autelis which I won't use now since the new pool we built has Pentair IntelliCenter.
I have the Vera Plus connected and have it controlling a couple of Honeywell Z-Wave thermostats and a couple of lights but It seems to just be slower and slower as it ages. I have an intel i3 NUC that is probably 6 years old but figure it's probably powerful enough to control HA going forward. I also dabbled with HomeSeer but it seems to cost a fortune for plugins. I have HS4 and a G3 Z-Wave Plus dongle from them.
How do I get started? I'm thinking I'll just unpair all my devices from the Vera Plus and add them to HA and then set up Reactor to do the logic but is there a way to migrate? Should I use Open LUA instead?
Lots of questions but I'm ready to get started an any help would be appreciated.
I have set up HA in a VM Box Virtual Machine and am progressing along.
I got new Kwikset Connect 620 door locks and got one connected to HA via Z-Wave JS and automated via Keymaster which is quite convoluted but I got it done.
I went to install the second lock and got it connected to HA via Z-Wave JS but am not being successful getting it to work properly in Keymaster.
Screenshot 2024-08-28 084902.png
Screenshot above is the second lock for the laundry room. It shows it is set up but the codes don't seem to be working.
I have not installed the lock yet and have not set the handing either. Maybe this is the issue but IDK.
Anyone have experience setting up locks in HA using Keymaster that can help would be great!
As our family grows and life gets busier, I've been thinking about upgrading to smart door locks. With kids often forgetting keys and elderly parents needing easier access, the idea of fingerprint and facial recognition seems like the perfect solution. I also love the idea of being able to lock and unlock the doors remotely, especially when we're away. Has anyone else implemented smart locks in a similar situation? How has it impacted your daily routine and overall home security?
Hi
Bought a new ZB device, an EV charger.
I was aware that there would one manufacturer specific cluster that wouldn't work out of the box, but several other clusters I hoped would work from start does not. Or at least there isn't any enteties for them.
So I have tried to study how to write a local quirk, but it is a bit overwhelming for mt brain.
Usually I can manage do get stuff moving with intense googling, finding guides or different solutions that I can start from, but here I find nothing that I can wrap my head around.
My latest try was to chat with Gemini AI 😰 (programmers, rest assured that your job will be safe for the foreseeable future 😁 )
I have gathered my device Diagnostic Info.
I have manufacturers ZB documentation.
A device support request is created on zigpy github (no response the last weeks)
For now there is just two entities for my device, on/off switch and energy sensors.
All non manufacture attributes and commands seems to be recognized in ZHA "Manage this Device"
It would be great if I could get some entities out of them.
For example the entity for manage charging power is expected to be presented as a dimmer slider.
But why isn't there any entity created??
The manufacture specific cluster is more of nice-to-have and could maybe be solved another day.
Any help would be much appreciated. 🙏
I just wanted to post how impressed I am with both HA and MSR. I really don't see that Ezlo have a chance in hell.
I noticed that my Virtual HA instance was killing my machine's performance, so decided that my project for the weekend would be a stand alone Raspberry Pi instance. Less than an hour to install, restore and configure both HA and MSR and it all just works. Thanks to everyone that contributes to these fabulous projects. Especially our own @toggledbits for the amazing work that is the new Reactor!
C
Very impressed by Harmony hub on HA. Seems to suck all of my network goodness in 🙂
One thing I'm not clear on is how to send individual commands. Specifically I'd like to send volume commands to my TV via MSR. I've got as far as:
<edit?> There should be a screen capture here, but I'm getting a Parse error 😞
@DesT ....
Suggestions for values to turn the volume down on my TV, or pointers as to where to look?
TIA
C
Domoticz (used for zigbee integration) have been bothering me so much that i've been looking at HomeAssistant to replace it. Now that Z-way is moving in with an integration, its even more tempting..
But i don't like the idea of having it as an OS that I can't use for other things, and running the HASS Core in a docker seems to be somewhat reduced in terms of addons?
I realize that HASSOS is using docker for integrations or addons, but can I still use docker compose to set up my own dockers (i.e z-way, influx, grafana) there as well?
I guess i'm getting old, change is difficult! 😉
I've just started to look at HASS UI, and have seen enough to see that it has an infinite number of ways to show enitites and devices in all forms and shapes.. But for starters i'd like to have something familiar, so how do i go about getting a sidebar for rooms like in openluup?
I know i can put them in the actual left sidebar, but i'd prefer to keep that for configuration pages..
on each room page i'd like to sort the lights, the heaters, the sensors together, and i saw somewhere that HASS will do that for you if you play your cards (pun) right.. can't find it again now..
Any pointers to a beginner?
Relates to Vera integration in Home Assistant
Just for you to be aware.
If you are using plugs (or whatever) in Vera to measure energy for your appliances this is deprecated in 2022.4.0 since the HA integration to Vera is not updated and maintained anymore.
2022.3.8:
Skärmavbild 2022-04-14 kl. 19.54.47.png
2022.4.3:
Skärmavbild 2022-04-14 kl. 20.48.06.png
Time to move away from Vera for z-wave ...
Link to HA thread:
Yes, it can truly be a hard time to keep up with all the changes and sadly that no one maintains Vera no more. The REST sensor can make it live a bit longer at least for now… sensor: - platform: rest name: "ender_kwh" resource: http://IP_OF_VERA:3480...
I've integrated Reactor and Z-Way Expert panel in my HA UI, but as it is iFrame, it will not work if I log in from the outside.
It would be great to access these in case my wife finds an automation flaw while I'm elsewhere, which seems to be the rule of thumb..
If I understand this right, all the dockers(reactor, z-way) host their own web server on the port, so it should be possible to get this throuh the HA "tunnel"(VPN or whatever its called)?
I noticed that my Octoprint camera is integrated differently, and can be seen on external connection as well even if i only give it a local address in setup?
(Not sure it's the right HA bridge but....)
I have a selection of HA bridge devices to enable Alexa integration. They all work perfectly except one that has just (48 hours) started saying that it's un responsive with Alexa. If I go to the HA bridge and test on / test off it works absolutely perfectly.
I've deleted and renamed from the Alexa App but no change. Simply says 'Device Un-responsive'
Any thoughts?
TIA
C
Hello,
I am currently running Home Assistant and Vera at the same time. I have installed a couple of ZEN32 5 button controllers but having issues getting the additional buttons to control my Vera devices. Am using the ZEN32 (Z-wave JS) blueprint which works well for devices on HASS. In developer tools I can use the Light:Toggle service and toggle my kitchen light through Vera. If I create the same action through the ZEN blueprint it doesn't work.
Anyone have any thoughts?
Roger
Hi!
Since a couple of days, I'm not able to use the TTS in MSR (HA). I haven't done anything else but updated HA. Don't know if that's the source of the problem. Have this happened to anyone else, or is it just me?
When I searched in the HA community, there seems to be a croud of people having this issue - but they often refers to Alexa, so they may not have my problems.
I took a snapshot of a MSR instance, where it shows that the TTS is missing. I use to have 4 different TTS engines to choose from - now I have none. Am I alone in this?
a10dde36-e301-4013-9146-02f2b18c20ed-image.png
Opening a thread to discuss updates to my home assistant fork.
GitHub - rafale77/core: :house_with_garden: Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first GitHub - rafale77/core: :house_with_garden: Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first:house_with_garden: Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first - rafale77/core
I am trying to keep it on par with the official one but have made quite a few tweaks focused on video handling and processing. Home Assistant being developed on python is a great base for integration of machine learning and deep learning models into smarthomes because it is one of the most common languages used in the field.
As of today, I updated the readme file and the version to match the latest official release.
Most of my spoken commands to Alexa go something like this:
"Alexa, time for bed"at which point she executes a pre-planned Routine (triggered by that spoken phrase). The routine may turn On a virtual switch (named, say, "VS: Time for Bed" on my Vera Plus, but known to the Alexa Smart Home skill as "Time for Bed" just to keep my sanity).
The VS is a child device of Switchboard plug-in (by @toggledbits ) and acts as a binary (On/Off) light switch. Typically, I'll instruct Reactor to turn the switch back off -- or, more commonly, have it set to turn itself back off after NN seconds in the Switchboard UI. In other words, it's just a brief Trigger for a Reactor routine or Vera scene.
Now, here's my question: In order to avoid creating dozens of virtual switches -- one for each Routine / Scene -- has anyone tried using a DIMMER instead?
Seems to me that a dimming device, since it can be set to 100 different "brightness levels", could trigger 100 different responses in Reactor. But I'm hesitant to try this arrangement until I know others have had success, and that the faux "dimming" process won't inadvertently trigger intermediate values (e.g. "ramping") along the way.
Eager to hear if this alternative workflow makes sense and is practical, insofar as "Binary" and "Dimmer" seem to be the only switch types that Vera allows Alexa to "see" on Discovery.
Thanks! - Libra
Migrating from Vera Plus to Home Assistant (or other?)
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I've got a lot of Zwave devices inside walls, so I'm being using a Vera Edge as a Zwave radio bridged to openLuup. Works perfectly once you move everything else to openLuup. Just leave the thermostats on Vera and bridge to openLuup. Makes the transition a lot easier.
Hoping to see Zwavejs talking to openLuup via MQTT one day. It's certainly possible. In the interim it wouldn't be too hard to set up a couple of Zwave devices using the Virtual Devices plugin but thermostats may be a bit tricky.
Also got ZigBee2MQTT talking to openLuup (mainly Hue devices) and some Shellies - all works nicely. You can also use Reactor with it.
You can read the openLuup info here.
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I made the switch from Vera to Home Assistant a few years ago and NEVER looked back. Main things that helped was using the Vera integration in HA that allowed me to control the devices that I hadn't already migrated over to HA. Also MSR ability to import Vera's Reactor config was massive and saved me a ton of time. Bit by bit I brought things over to HA.
I do recommend starting your Z wave network from scratch using Z Wave JS UI in HA so you have a nice fresh start and can take advantage of newer and better supported z wave networks.
As for what you should run HA on I would skip running it on any sort of SBC. Instead something like a NUC would be great and nowadays you can pick up a mini PC for a ~$100 used. It will do you fine and give you plenty of headroom in the future should you want to grow your setup. You can either run HA in docker that way you can run MSR and anything else on the same HW or run it using HA OS and then run MSR (unsupported) as an add-on. I preferred to run HA OS so I used my Odroid N2+ that I had kicking around to run Linux so that I could run anything else I wanted on the side.
Once you make the switch you will realize how much you've been missing out on!
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I too moved away from Vera (got me banned!) and now run Z-wave, OpenLuup, MSR and Mosquitto on a NUC such as yours. Also have Home Assistant for some other integrations. HA runs on a Pi3B
FWIW my view is that HA is not, on its own, a replacement for Vera + Reactor. (Although it might be for Vera alone)As others imply, step away from Vera and you will never look back.
C
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@Pabla said in Migrating from Vera Plus to Home Assistant (or other?):
I do recommend starting your Z wave network from scratch using Z Wave JS UI in HA so you have a nice fresh start and can take advantage of newer and better supported z wave networks.
I would go ZWaveJSController to directly interface Reactor to ZWaveJS. HA dumbs some of the ZWave stuff down a little too much for my taste, so even though I'm using HA and still see its version of my ZWave mesh devices, I use ZWaveJSController for the direct access to ZWaveJS and do most of my ZWave device access and control directly.
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Sorry I've not posted back yet..
Lot's of suggestions here. Keep in mind the last thing I programed was something in college decades ago in Fortran so I don't know any of the current languages. I need something dumbed down and preferably graphics based.I actually have a HomeSeer Smart Stick + actually, Model number SA 370-2, 908.42 MHz (Said G3 in my initial post) and would like to use my NUC for the controller but for whatever reason it is packed away and I cannot find it.
Can I start on my Ryzen 3700x and then migrate it over to the NUC when I dig it out of storage?
I'm thinking HA might be more for me because I need it dumbed down a bit but where to start? Links?
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@sammy2 Yes migrating HA setups is not difficult! HA setup nowadays is more GUI based so you won't have to deal with much code. Setting up MSR you will have to but its very basic straightforward stuff and a lot of useful info is available on the docs. Plus we're all here to help!
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No, really, no coding required these days.
Although if you did want to dip your toe in, I’d certainly recommend Lua, which is what Vera (and openLuup) plugins use. It’s modern, but not a difficult move from Fortran (which is what I cut my teeth on when at school.)
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Hi, instead of full DYI I switched to Hubitat. Nice thing is that MSR supports both Vera and Hubitat so you can migrate in phases. I'm running MSR in Docker on a NAS. I added HA for some integrations that do not exist for Hubitat, also using docker, and also linked with MSR. Last I use openLuup to run some plugins that came from Vera and have not found good replacements for. All logic that is complex or needs more than one platform sits in MSR.
When you move a (zwave) device from Vera to Hubitat (or HA) it is just a matter of changing to old device to the new in MSR rules and the wife does not even notice
For fun I also added InfluxDB and Grafana and am now learning to build some nice dashboard as a sort of datamine replacement. Using MSR you can feed Influx form any of the connected systems. HA and Hubitat have InfluxDB connections.
As you see, many options to ditch Vera.
Cheers Rene
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Sorry guys.. Been working 60 hour weeks currently so I've been back burnering this!
At any rate, I think I'm going to go with HA and am still looking for answers to these questions:
I actually have a HomeSeer Smart Stick + actually, Model number SA 370-2, 908.42 MHz (Said G3 in my initial post) and would like to use my NUC for the controller but for whatever reason it is packed away and I cannot find it.
Can I start on my Ryzen 3700x and then migrate it over to the NUC when I dig it out of storage?
I think though I might want to find the NUC because I thought I read a few weeks ago to run HA on an intel PC, there's a HA (Linux?) os and the NUC would need to be formatted. I'm not going to do that with my everyday work horse and media server!
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Late posting, just saw this thread.
Welcome to abused Vera users club. I switched almost 2 years ago now and never looked back. When Vera Plus came out, it had such protentional and a loyal user base with great developers. I was running Vera Plus for I think 8 or 9 years, and had been experiencing deteriorating support from both Vera/Ezlo itself, as well as broken plugins that I constantly had to try to work around. When I switched, I had been monitoring the evolution of Ezlo, but it never seemed ready for prime time for me.
If you used Reactor on Vera, MSR is your answer. You can migrate your existing rules from Reactor on Vera to MSR easily.
Others have mentioned you can use Vera as a Z-wave radio. This is true, however, it's only capable of so much. If you want to use newer devices, Vera just can't take full advantage. I'm running my Home Assistant setup on a Rpi 4 with a Aeotec Zwave stick, and 80 Z-wave devices on the network, with hardly an issue. 75% of the devices are 700 series or newer with support for S2 encryption (won't get that on Vera Plus). I run MSR on my Fedora NAS server, and they work well together.
I'm constantly amazed at the possible integrations that I couldn't even dream about on Vera Plus.
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@CatmanV2 said in Migrating from Vera Plus to Home Assistant (or other?):
@sammy2 Feel free to message me direct and we can go to some kind of more interactive communications. I used Virtualbox (although I was on Mac) with the defaults and it took me about 10 minutes
C
I'm probably at the point to need some remote assistance in completing the installation.. I'll be available Friday morning around 5am PDT.
