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Seeking Advice:
G
The locksmith is trying to persuade me to purchase the BE-TECH K35 touchscreen lock with both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, claiming it's better than the Yale Assure Lock 2. What are your thoughts on this? Which one would you recommend? Here is the link to the Chinese brand BE-TECH: BE-TECH Smart Deadbolt K3S. The other smart lock I am considering is the Schlage Encode Plus. Thank you!
Blogs
15+ Smart Home Automation Ideas from Pros
L
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Blogs
Finally gave up on my Ezlo Plus
CrilleC
The promise of "all available devices will be supported" gave me hope for including more Zigbee devices into to my home as Vera was not a good option for Zigbee devices. Despite the support for new devices is extremely slow, the implementation of Zigbee has a lot to wish for and it seems a low priority at Ezlo I managed to include 22 of my 23 Zigbee devices as generic. But after 2 years of devices still missing attributes and randomly/every controller reboot loosing connection to the controller and had to be power cycled to connect again, and some even dropping off the network completely without any reason, I decided to give up. The positive outcome of all this: I bought a Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus and installed Zigbee2MQTT and never been happier. Suddenly the pairing were no pain and took a few seconds per device, all my devices were recognized, all capabilities of the devices were exposed and it never misses a signal to/from a device ever. I'm surprised how stable and configurable my new setup is. I can set device parameters, offsets, send messages handled by the bulbs them self like effects, broadcast for groups, transition time for power on/off. I can handle debounce for MQTT messages, do OTA firmware update on devices and much more! Most of this is probably standard for the common branded hubs like Hue etc but I never had one so this is new to me. A big plus for me is the MQTT part of Zigbee2MQTT as I'm migrating as much as possible to MQTT. My Ezlo Plus is now serving as a modified WiFi access point to my network and only have the VistaCam 1203 Doorbell still connected for evaluation. Time will tell if I ever move my Z-wave devices to it. Conclusion: I could really recommend both the Sonoff 3.0 USB Dongle Plus and Zigbee2MQTT to anyone going the same path!
Blogs
Another transition from Vera to OpenLuup And now to HASS - PerH
PerHP
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Blogs
Half-way migration from Vera
therealdbT
In a quest to further stabilize my Vera before I'll move to Z-Way+openLuup or something else later this year (I'm tempted to go the Home Assistant route, since all my friends are here, apparently), I've spent a couple of days removing HTTP calls from the system and I'm now fully using the UDP sender @akbooer has written in the past, to push all variables (and custom events/request as well) to my MQTT broker, then to some code doing the actual work. Responsiveness seems to be at its maximum now, and stability has improved. There's still a lot of code locally on my Vera, but it's mainly doing variables comparison/scenes, while all notifications and heavy logic are now running in my linux box. So, maybe, not insisting on the sockets and just use the same UDP server is the way to go for me.
Blogs
My Home Automation Story
rafale77R
Share your blog or adventure here. Here is mine: https://rafale77.blogspot.com
Blogs
My migration from Vera, or what I did on my holidays
CatmanV2C
Well here we go. A slow, considered migration from Vera to something (I hope) more reliable. Hopefully we'll end up with a decent documented process for people as right now I'm still not quite clear Starting point: I have a 'mature' Mios set up running on an extrooted Vera Plus with roughly 100 devices, both physical and virtual Integration with Alexa both voice control and TTS iPhones for Geolocation Volumio devices for music playing around the house. I have no user defined scenes, all automation is run from Reactor. My impetus is final dissatisfaction with the quality of UI7 software delivery and operational rigour (for full disclosure I am a senior IT Operations leader with circa 20 years experience delivering properly stable systems, so I probably have un-realistic expectations ) So initial steps: Raspberry Pi 3 B+ (I think this is my 5, and 6th Pi in total. I may have a problem) Raspbian OpenLuup Verabridge That I think is stage 1 C
Blogs
Not so much a blog
CatmanV2C
...but I now only have house mode scenes left on Vera. All other automation is by Reactor and Switchboard / Alexa routines. WAF may be low tomorrow if it doesn't work C
Blogs
My Wandering
ElcidE
I am a Electrician. I installed hundreds of smart devices for others prior to having my own home automation. In 2013 I bought a new house and decided to make it smart. I did some homework and settled on Z-wave and VeraPlus. My installation comprises of 25 Z-wave dimmer/switch inserts 3 Z-wave door sensors 10 sonoff devices(basics,TH16 and Mini) , 4 Tuya(lamps and RGB strips) , 6 shellys(connected to motion sensors and 2 controlling dead DIY bolts ) 3 Amazon Dots(gen2) 2 Broadlink (RMPro's) 4 DIY RF Venetian Blinds 2 Multi button DIY remotes 1 NVR 1 Network drive/Media server/ftp server. 1 smart thermostat heating and hot water 4 wired 240v/battery Aico smoke and heat detectors (connect to zwave via Relays) 1 robot hover. 1 Siren Node-red server running on android. Testing openluup on android. Automate App running on andorid Boxes/phones. All tv's are connected to android boxes. No windows PC. Debian running on android box. Plugins Reactor, AlexaTTS, Switchboard and Virtual HTTP Switch. I can control all of my devices from anyone of these platforms Vera/OpenLuup, Node-red, Automate(phone/tv box) or Alexa. All devices have a standard/manual switch for anyone to control, and can be controlled even if my VeraPlus stopped working or internet out. My system is stable and may get a luup reload every couple of weeks. None of my sonoff's or tuya have been flashed. I found Shelly very late into game and will be using these more now i found them, as they offer local control. I have some coding knowledge from the 90's, but have never worked in the industry.
Blogs
This is me
CatmanV2C
Well, if I see further, it's because I stand of the shoulders of giants. I've got where I got because of the experts here. I started about 15 years ago with some really basic X10 stuff. When we moved in 2011 for some reason it simply would not work in the new house, so z-wave was the thing. Vera lite then Vera Plus. I'm a child of the 70s. I want the car on the drive to be KITT and my lounge a cross between the bridge of the enterprise and the Lars farm on Tattoine. Not there yet, but with about 250 devices (virtual and real) things are fun (when they work!) The absolute killer app for me is Alexa bi directional speech. To the extent that I've walked into hotel rooms and said 'Alexa turn the lights on....' I'm within a spit of never buying another control and doing everything via Alexa and Reactor (had to drop that in) So that's pretty much me. C
Blogs
My Home Automation Setup...
DesTD
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Blogs

My migration from Vera, or what I did on my holidays

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  • CatmanV2C Offline
    CatmanV2C Offline
    CatmanV2
    wrote on last edited by
    #50

    Hmm so this looks like a no win scenario. Torch and start again 😞

    C

    The Ex-Vera abuser know as CatmanV2.....

    1 Reply Last reply
    0
    • CatmanV2C Offline
      CatmanV2C Offline
      CatmanV2
      wrote on last edited by CatmanV2
      #51

      So plan to get me back. It shouldn't be too hard but I'll probably leave it for today because of the Alexa / HA bridge stuff will stop.

      Install 64bit Debian
      Install Lua
      Install jq (for Alexa TTS)
      Install default-jdk and jre
      Install HA-bridge

      Restore the copies of the service definitions I created
      Enable them in systemctl

      Restore the Open-luup backup
      Restore the HAbridge backup.

      Hope?

      @akbooer @rafale77 @therealdb does this sound like a good test? 😄

      Regards

      Chris

      The Ex-Vera abuser know as CatmanV2.....

      1 Reply Last reply
      1
      • rafale77R Offline
        rafale77R Offline
        rafale77
        wrote on last edited by
        #52

        Yeah sorry I never thought about 32bit installation... have not done anything on 32bit OS except for the vera for ages.

        CatmanV2C 1 Reply Last reply
        0
        • rafale77R rafale77

          Yeah sorry I never thought about 32bit installation... have not done anything on 32bit OS except for the vera for ages.

          CatmanV2C Offline
          CatmanV2C Offline
          CatmanV2
          wrote on last edited by
          #53

          @rafale77 hardly your fault! I only grabbed it because the NUC was something of an unknown 😄

          C

          The Ex-Vera abuser know as CatmanV2.....

          1 Reply Last reply
          0
          • akbooerA Offline
            akbooerA Offline
            akbooer
            wrote on last edited by
            #54

            The openLuup transfer should be straightforward. I’d save the whole of the cmh-ludl directory tree with all your device files, etc. There’s nothing that’s 32/64 bit dependant.

            1 Reply Last reply
            1
            • CatmanV2C Offline
              CatmanV2C Offline
              CatmanV2
              wrote on last edited by
              #55

              I pretty much have 😉

              Just overwrite the lot on the new install, yes?

              Thanks!

              C

              The Ex-Vera abuser know as CatmanV2.....

              akbooerA 1 Reply Last reply
              0
              • CatmanV2C CatmanV2

                I pretty much have 😉

                Just overwrite the lot on the new install, yes?

                Thanks!

                C

                akbooerA Offline
                akbooerA Offline
                akbooer
                wrote on last edited by
                #56

                @CatmanV2 said in My migration from Vera, or what I did on my holidays:

                Just overwrite the lot on the new install, yes?

                Yes.

                1 Reply Last reply
                1
                • CatmanV2C Offline
                  CatmanV2C Offline
                  CatmanV2
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #57

                  Well that was fun 🙂

                  Debian re-install. Restore of Openluup instant.

                  Restore of HA Bridge not so much. Or in fact at all. But there we are . Not too much more to do 🙂

                  C

                  The Ex-Vera abuser know as CatmanV2.....

                  1 Reply Last reply
                  1
                  • CatmanV2C Offline
                    CatmanV2C Offline
                    CatmanV2
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #58

                    Spoke too soon, but HA Bridge is finally back where it was. No idea why I was having so many issues, but I suspect there were overall Vera issues which shouldn't be a problem but....

                    Anway.

                    To get Z-wave running on Debian I followed the Z-wave manual and then @rafale77 's excellent tutorial on Debian install. It's up running and hooked into Openluup but tomorrow and the weekend are busy so I doubt I'll get much progress.

                    C

                    The Ex-Vera abuser know as CatmanV2.....

                    1 Reply Last reply
                    1
                    • CatmanV2C Offline
                      CatmanV2C Offline
                      CatmanV2
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #59

                      It looks like tomorrow is the day....

                      C

                      The Ex-Vera abuser know as CatmanV2.....

                      1 Reply Last reply
                      1
                      • CatmanV2C Offline
                        CatmanV2C Offline
                        CatmanV2
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #60

                        Hmmm

                        So how long should a restore take? Mine seems to be stuck at 91% and none of my actual devices are visible in the dashboard. Z-wave network is not starting.

                        Maybe I'm being too impatient

                        C

                        The Ex-Vera abuser know as CatmanV2.....

                        1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • CatmanV2C Offline
                          CatmanV2C Offline
                          CatmanV2
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #61

                          Hmm total nightmare. Never gets past restoring to 91%. Won't start Z-wave. Wont' show my devices. dev/ttyACM0 keeps being replaced by tty/ACM1

                          Might just burn it and start from scratch

                          C

                          The Ex-Vera abuser know as CatmanV2.....

                          1 Reply Last reply
                          0
                          • CatmanV2C Offline
                            CatmanV2C Offline
                            CatmanV2
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #62

                            OK that's looking better after a second restore. Lots of devices. All with dumb arse names, waiting for wakeup in many cases. Good

                            C

                            The Ex-Vera abuser know as CatmanV2.....

                            1 Reply Last reply
                            0
                            • CatmanV2C Offline
                              CatmanV2C Offline
                              CatmanV2
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #63

                              OK I think that's the important stuff working apart from a Fibaro dimmer in the kitchen. I can't get it beyond any kind of 85% on the interview.

                              Similarly my SRT321 in the hall claims it's a switch with is a little irritating

                              Any thoughts?

                              C

                              The Ex-Vera abuser know as CatmanV2.....

                              1 Reply Last reply
                              0
                              • akbooerA Offline
                                akbooerA Offline
                                akbooer
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #64

                                Have you other Fibaros which have interviewed OK?

                                1 Reply Last reply
                                0
                                • CatmanV2C Offline
                                  CatmanV2C Offline
                                  CatmanV2
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #65

                                  Yes, although no other Fibaro dimmers. Only modules

                                  C

                                  The Ex-Vera abuser know as CatmanV2.....

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                                  0
                                  • CatmanV2C Offline
                                    CatmanV2C Offline
                                    CatmanV2
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #66

                                    In other news none of my devices turned up int the right rooms. I'm having some trouble getting some of them to show up in AltUI

                                    Is there a way to force a refresh, other than the obvious reload Luup and hard refresh?

                                    Cheers

                                    C

                                    The Ex-Vera abuser know as CatmanV2.....

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                                    0
                                    • CatmanV2C Offline
                                      CatmanV2C Offline
                                      CatmanV2
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #67

                                      OK beginning to get some kind of grip here.

                                      The main thermostat has been created with D_ComboDevice1.xml which ain't gonna work 😄

                                      Does anyone have copies or know where I can get the right xml and json files at all? There doesn't appear to be anything obviously suitable in my files folder, but if anyone knows what they should be, that would be lovely.

                                      C

                                      The Ex-Vera abuser know as CatmanV2.....

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                                      0
                                      • rafale77R Offline
                                        rafale77R Offline
                                        rafale77
                                        wrote on last edited by rafale77
                                        #68

                                        don't worry about the interview percentage. That doesn't matter at all. I have devices at 50% and they all work fine. This is due to device makers using very weird implementations declaring command classes on their list which the device does not support so the device won't answer. Fibaro and aeotec are notorious for doing that which is why I avoid them as much as possible. What matters is not the percentage but what command classes are being interviewed.
                                        It seems you are doing a lot of things at the same time. Let's take it step by step. Is your restore on the vera hanging at 85%?

                                        Before starting on the bridge, I would recommend to get familiar with the z-way interface and get all your devices setup with names and rooms there. They will be imported by the bridge.

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                                        0
                                        • CatmanV2C Offline
                                          CatmanV2C Offline
                                          CatmanV2
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #69

                                          Sorry, chap 🙂

                                          Way ahead of that. I have about 90% of my devices working.

                                          Nearly all are in AltUI A-OK

                                          Ones I have problems with, in order of importance:

                                          SRT321 thermostat in the hall:
                                          This has AltUI attributes of D_ComboDevice1.xml and json. Can be seen in elements of Z-way but cannot be controlled

                                          Fibaro dimmer 2 in the kitchen:
                                          This has AltUI attributes of D_PowerMeter1.xml and json. Not visible in the elements of Z-way

                                          Thanks!

                                          C

                                          The Ex-Vera abuser know as CatmanV2.....

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