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    (Last Updated: March 25, 2021)
    • Messaging after VERA decoupling

      D

      First I want to say thank you to this group. You have given me ideas and help along the HA path for a long time.
      I'm an old Vera user and planning to decouple from MIOS cloud now or after 7.32 but I'm stuck at how to push messages out.
      I'm using Reactor and Scenes for Vera native messaging. What's a good solution going forward?

      Also want to mention that after reading the Decoupling document I have built a NTP GPS server on a Pi3B and enjoyed learning more about Linux along the way. I have it stabilized after learning 100 different ways.

      Thanks

      Vera
    • Vera firmware 7.32 beta

      LibraSun

      Anyone installed the new beta f/w on their Vera unit and liking it?

      Read https://community.ezlo.com/t/7-32-vera-firmware-beta-release/217060

      Vera
    • Vera Alexa Plugin 7.32

      Pabla

      Hello @therealdb , I have updated to the new vera FW and cant seem to get your plugin working. I keep seeing "install jq package" on the device itself and when I reset everything and got a new cookie file I see this in the device's Latest Response variable: ERROR: missing argument for -d /storage/alexa/alexa_remote_control_plain.sh [-d .

      I have used the code to reset the cookies, added a new cookie file, added the OTP, updated the plugin (did this first actually) and still cant get it working.

      Testing some TTS commands I see this response in my logs:

      "Say", {Text="Hello from Vera Alexa", Volume=50, GroupZones="Bar Echo", Repeat = 3}, 632)) <0x6bc41520> 08 03/14/21 10:57:57.179 JobHandler_LuaUPnP::HandleActionRequest device: 632 service: urn:bochicchio-com:serviceId:VeraAlexa1 action: Say <0x6bc41520> 08 03/14/21 10:57:57.179 JobHandler_LuaUPnP::HandleActionRequest argument Repeat=3 <0x6bc41520> 08 03/14/21 10:57:57.179 JobHandler_LuaUPnP::HandleActionRequest argument Text=Hello from Vera Alexa <0x6bc41520> 08 03/14/21 10:57:57.180 JobHandler_LuaUPnP::HandleActionRequest argument GroupZones=Bar Echo <0x6bc41520> 08 03/14/21 10:57:57.180 JobHandler_LuaUPnP::HandleActionRequest argument Volume=50 <0x6bc41520> 50 03/14/21 10:57:57.180 luup_log:632: VeraAlexa[0.9.0@632]:addToQueue: added to queue for 632 <0x6bc41520> 01 03/14/21 10:57:57.181 LuaInterface::CallFunction_Job device 632 function SVeraAlexa1_VeraAlexa1_Say_run failed /etc/cmh-ludl/L_VeraAlexa1.lua:89: bad argument #3 to 'format' (string expected, got nil) <0x6bc41520> 50 03/14/21 10:57:57.181 luup_log:0: ALTUI: Evaluation of lua code returned: nil <0x6bc41520> ```
      Vera
    • Backup

      T

      Hello Everyone -

      Can someone point me in the proper direction of doing a Vera (Secure) backup?

      Specifically, I'm worried about a controller failure and unable to source a new one where I could just use the included backup facilities.

      I'm considering staying on Vera a little longer to see what happens with Ezlo (especially around easy migrations).

      I know I can manually run backups from the UI but wondering if there's a more "standard" method that would allow me to move to another platform if required. This would require me to pull my (important definition, I feel. This shouldn't be a secret) encryption key off of the Vera as part of the backup - so any pointers there would be helpful as well.

      Vera
    • How to throttle or stop plug-in from cluttering LuaPnP Log?

      LibraSun

      I use the ROKU plug-in from Vera's app repository. It seems to constantly add Log entries every 5 seconds or so, to the point where my LuaPnP log is just littered with page-long reports about the status of my Roku TV. My Log is 75% "Roku" status!

      The only pertinent setting I see under Advanced > Variables is "PollingEnabled" (default: true) which when set to false does indeed stop the logging altogether. But I fear this also completely stops the plug-in from checking TV status which otherwise would update variables that happen to trigger some of my MSR routines. (More testing needed here...)

      But do you guys know of any way -- up to and including editing the D_, I_ or L_ files of the plug-in itself! -- to simply stop or slow a running plug-in from writing to the Log??

      Also, is there any harm (other than mild annoyance when I have to review the Log for unrelated things) in allowing Vera to write so vigorously to the Log all day long??

      THANKS!

      Vera
    • Instant regret after clicking "Configure Node Right Now" on device

      LibraSun

      I regret my decision to click "Configure Node Right Now" on an otherwise working device (a Fibaro RGBW LED dimmer control) while it was "Off". Doing so seems to have caused all of its "children" devices (RGB(R), RGB(G), etc.) to disappear from my Vera UI, and I have no idea how to get them back.

      Meanwhile, the parent device keeps reporting "Device Failed to Configure" (in red)** and cannot be controlled by Vera any longer. Nor do the attached LEDs go "On" in response to other Scenes.

      How do I undo this innocent mistake? Restarting the Luup engine and hard-refreshing my browser/UI has not helped.

      THANKS!

      P.S. What does that button DO!??!

      EDIT: Now the affected device reports (in light blue) "Please wait! Getting the manufacturer...", then "Setting special association", etc. Then 8 unnamed devices magically appeared in the affected room...
      I am hoping these are good signs?

      Vera
    • Deleting unused GeoFencing waypoints from Vera (Mobile)

      LibraSun

      Seems as though during my testing of the Vera Mobile app, I set up a couple of Scenes (now deleted) which never worked anyway.

      But MSR's "Entities" tab still shows the presence of two waypoints (with Vera ID's like vera>geo_1625761_1) which I have no clue how to delete.

      I've searched high and low in the app (Settings, Users, etc.), and can't think of anywhere in the Vera Plus UI to look for these - not even sure what to call 'em - to Delete them.

      Any clues?

      Vera
    • Unexplained "LinuxTest" admin account on my Vera?!?

      LibraSun

      I just peeked into my Vera Plus > User and Account Info > Other Users and much to my astonishment (and horror?) found a little surprise waiting for me, an account called "LinuxTest".

      Seems it magically has the highest possible authority ("Account Administrator") within my Vera Plus, along with a contact email of linuxtest@mailinator.com

      Does this appear on anyone else's 7.32 (beta firmware) Vera unit?

      (In case it matters... no, I've never requested or authorized Customer Support on this unit, at least not in the past 10 years.)

      Hmm. - Libra

      Vera
    • Second Z-wave netwerk or slave controler

      E

      I have a VeraPlus and would like to purchase a second z-wave controler. Is it possible to build a second z-wave network next to an existing z-wave network? Slowly I want to move devices form Vera to the new z-wave network. Is it more advisable to install the second z-wave controller as a slave controler?

      Vera
    • Can't Purge Associations

      Pabla

      Updated to 7.32 beta and it made all my Zooz switches act up, finally got everything back to normal except one device. Its a Zooz zen21 switch and prior to updating it had an associations group set on it (was trying to associate two switches, didn't work) and after the update I tried removing the associations but the switch is failing at purging associations.

      Before I repair the switch does anyone know of a way to either force an associations purge or get rid of the error?

      Vera
    • Setting Device Parameters (from documentation)

      LibraSun

      Before I give up completely, and lose my entire mind, can someone please tell me I'm following the correct steps to get the LED of my NodOn Soft Remote configured through Vera?

      Vera
    • Old VERA 1 up and running!

      LibraSun

      Dusted off my mothballed Vera 1 unit, which I thought was broken -- that's why I bought a Vera Plus a few years ago -- and she's evidently working perfectly.

      Haven't attempted any Z-Wave inclusions yet (though the dongle, also surprisingly, appears functional).

      ANY REQUESTS? Want any files copied, or for me to perform any experiments using Multi-System Reactor on the Vera 1?

      Vera
    • Sensative Strip showing two instances in Vera.

      R

      I have a Sensative strip that is in Vera twice. Each one has a different Device number and ID. Have tried to delete one and it will not go away. How can I remove one without loosing the other?

      Vera
    • Vera account suspended for a 1000 years

      S

      So, after more than 10 years and 4 Vera's, my vera forum account is suspended.

      I think the monkey of the company, called melih is not man enough te have any critic. In the topic about the "great to come app" I responded to the topic (not off topic!) that a subscription can also be seen (financially) as buying a box, run it for 2 years and come to market with a better one (in better wordings).
      That means that if you as a company hast a box of 50USD cost, sell it at 250USD would give him a monthly subscription of 200/24=8.33 USD... Users that would last 5 years would pay a monthly of 3.33USD.

      But... the monkey on the rock has bolded his fists and said: ban him! He just can't take any criticism.

      To be honest! I am not even sad! It was a very rough journey with Vera. The journey stopped when Ezlo and the monkey took over the name.

      After that it quickly went downhill...

      Goodluck all! (except the monkey).

      Edit:
      The topic:

      Aug 16, 2020 MiOS Application - early Beta enrollment MiOS Application - early Beta enrollment

      are you serious? would I become a cost? that is, customers who periodically replace the control unit and are happy with the service praise the Vera system and therefore also free advertising but, the new “company” decides to charge less to bind the customer with a subscription … But the genius...

      The post:
      The point you are missing is:

      If the hardware would “cost” around 50USD, and you sold it for 250USD, an average life span of 5 years would mean 200/(5×12)=3.33USD per month. Thats how Vera used to do it.

      Then release a faster/better “beast” every 2 years gives you 200/(2×12)=8.33USD per month. That’s how vera used to do it.

      And that’s how I did it for around 8 years and 4 veras with them untill you bought the company.

      This is just a matter of how you look at it and explain it.

      I dont frikking care how you do the maths, I only liked a working product and a close user community (like it was).

      Now all I see on this forum is a lot of “we are going to” and “we are working on”, “keep them coming guys”. But the reason for ever considering to buy a new vera every 2 years is gone…

      No clear migration path, no clear compatibility path and no clear integration path…

      That’s why I started to look for alternatives…

      Vera
    • (Problem) Migration Z-Wave NW from Vera to UZB1 dongle

      T

      So ... I am trying to do the following:

      Current setup:
      Vera Plus (1.7.4955) Zwave only -> HASSIO VM (full control via Vera Integration)

      Future Target:
      HASSIO VM (leveraging zwave.me UZB1 dongle via USB)

      I have done the following so far:

      Updated UZB1 dongle (via RPi SmartHome) to latest 5.39 Firmware

      I followed the following steps to try and migrate my existing Z-Wave NW (currently on Vera) onto the UZB1 dongle following the steps listed here:

      Migrate from Vera to Z-way

      Problem:

      Steps 1-3: went fine (although the dumps are labeled as dongle.6.1.dump.x)

      Step 4: went fine and the UZB1 was recognized as it should be (per dmesg)

      Step 5: updating the port to /dev/ttyACM0 went fine, although I didn't see any indication of luup reload (or a save button for that matter when updating the port mapping)

      Step 6: I did the touch for dongle.restore, but wasn't sure where to trigger a luup reload (I assumed it was Z-Wave Settings > Advanced > Reload Engine). I believe I got an error message when trying to do that step

      Step 7: verify dongle.restore.go I don't recall being in the directions when I was going the test, but I rebooted

      Post Reboot: None of my previous z-wave devices were listed. I also checked dmesg via ssh and noticed the following items:

      [ 4.328000] Unsupported Device! [ 4.328000] Vendor=658 ProdID=200 [ 4.328000] Manufacturer= Product=

      I saw that item a couple times which almost seems like Vera is blocking the UZB1 or at least complaining about it.

      I ended up switching the Z-Wave back to the embedded controller, and restoring configuration from backup.

      Any suggestions what I did wrong??

      Vera
    • How to get out of plugin download loop on a vera

      P

      Anyone have a way of killing this? Delete plugin? Install files manually? Desperate to get set up on the rpi.

      Vera
    • (Need Help) Migrate off Vera

      M

      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 switches

      Issue: 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,
      Michael

      Vera
    • Vera or not vera?

      K

      Dear Experts!

      In January 2020, I decided to get involved in automation as a complete beginner.
      I purchased a Vera Plus device controller.

      I built the network gradually, at the cost of overcoming no small problems .....
      Since I am a beginner I have had a lot of problems.

      For example: I had 6 multisensors that sometimes got stuck with motion detection (lights stayed on) and also created ghost devices.
      I knocked everything out of the system, the system stabilized a lot after that. (many red lines disappeared from luaupnp ....)

      Over time and with the help of the experts (Eg: AKbooer was a great help to me in netatmo which I thank again) I managed to solve most of the errors.

      I only use a reactor to control the logic and execution.
      The logical composition of my reactor is not very complicated in my opinion.

      My DSC alarm (with plugin) controls the house modes, cameras, each room has a separate reactor sensor (18 sensors in total) which control the automatic lighting and shutters.

      I tried to improve the conditions and scenes in the reactor to perfection. (don't have executions, delays and reservations at the same time, I record the states with the "time from reactor" group state, just like the motion and opening detections from another sensor.

      The situation is that the system does not always work reliably.
      I experience Lua recharges at completely unpredictable intervals, about 1-3 per day
      times.
      Because of this, unfortunately my scenes slip, (or don't happen)
      For simple things (tablet charging in) there is usually no problem.

      However, if I am not at home for several hours and return home, the alarms will turn off, and the luup recharge(90%).
      If you approach the afternoon when more times are set in the time reactor then recharging will still occur but not always.

      For the past 10 months, I feel tired of the constant error search and still not good. I'm starting to doubt Vera's abilities.

      Therefore, I would have the following questions:

      Are the conditions set in the reactor loaded on the vera without action?

      Can the Vera be stable and well-functioning without an unexpected lua reload?

      If so, what do I need to add? (I'm a simple user, not a programmer, I don't know lua and linux programming languages ​​and I don't want to learn because of vera)
      I don’t want to deal with this too much anymore, so I still spent more on it than I deserve.

      Is there another controller that works safely and well on the z-wave platform?

      In what direction should I move away from the vera, which will not disappoint me?

      Have you heard of a controller called comfortclick? (I was now offered this instead of vera)

      Thank you in advance for your help.

      Krisztian

      Vera
    • Nuke Vera Script

      rafale77

      Script to disable all the mios/vera proprietary program and broadcast its zwave and zigbee radio serial ports in your network so it can be picked up by another controller... For example z-way.

      rafale77/Nuke-Vera rafale77/Nuke-Vera

      Script to neuter the vera and broadcast its zwave and zigbee serial ports - rafale77/Nuke-Vera

      Vera
    • Vera Christmas Lights and migration away from Vera

      C

      My VeraPlus is in Christmas Light mode after attempting the latest update. So as I attempt to get things back with Vera Support I need to start looking into an alternate solution. I've installed OpenLuup in an Ubuntu VM I have running on an old PC. Right now I can still ssh into the VeraPlus.

      Will I be able to migrate the Z-Wave NW to a UZB dongle in this state? Or can I use @rafale77 's Nuke Vera Script to just use the VeraPlus as my zwave antenna? With either of these options have I lost the ability to migrate my configuration without Vera support restoring my VeraPlus first?

      Thanks

      Vera
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    Second Z-wave netwerk or slave controler

    Vera
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    • E
      Edwin1972 last edited by

      I have a VeraPlus and would like to purchase a second z-wave controler. Is it possible to build a second z-wave network next to an existing z-wave network? Slowly I want to move devices form Vera to the new z-wave network. Is it more advisable to install the second z-wave controller as a slave controler?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • akbooer
        akbooer last edited by

        I run multiple Zwave networks (up to four of them, in fact) without any problem.

        You definitely don't want a slave controller as that will become part of the original network. Integration between them can be done at a higher level (using openLuup, for example.)

        Bear in mind that Zwave is a mesh network topology, which benefits from a fairly dense set of nodes. By having two separate networks, they won't share the same mesh, but they do all live in the same RF bandwidth. I've never found this to be an issue.

        parkerc 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • E
          Edwin1972 last edited by

          Thanks for quick response! I think I wil also run a multiple zwave netwerk for testing devices.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • parkerc
            parkerc @akbooer last edited by

            @akbooer said in Second Z-wave netwerk or slave controler:

            Integration between them can be done at a higher level

            Hi @akbooer

            What are the options, and what are the pros/cons of each ?

            I’ve personally just used the http request option..

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • rafale77
              rafale77 last edited by

              As I posted elsewhere, my analysis using a zwave zniffer shows that:

              1. You can run multiple zwave networks but it is not recommended because zwave functions only on 2 or 3 channels depending on your region and each zwave controller makes use of all of them. This means, 2 zwave controllers/network devices will interfere with one another causing latencies as they will therefore have to retry when the RF messages are come scrambled.
              2. The vera chattier than any other controller due to its insane and broken self management scheme so larger networks, your chances of running into problems will be even more amplified.

              On openLuup you really can go either way. A second zwave network really makes sense only if it is not located in such a way that two networks would interfere with one another. If your network is relatively small (less than ~30 devices) it probably doesn't matter which way you go but anything larger than that, I would recommend the secondary controller option which eventually can open the option to just transfer the primary role to the secondary controller without having to exclude/include any devices. That's how I along with @DesT and others for example did it. I have over 150 nodes and really didn't want to exclude/include the entire network.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • E
                Edwin1972 last edited by Edwin1972

                @rafale77, Thank you for your response. I have read your blog on GitHub (https://github.com/rafale77/Z-Way/blob/master/README.md) with full interest. Thank you for the time you put into it. I have taken the following steps:

                • Buy a Pi 4
                • Install OpenLuup / Reactor on Pi4
                • Install VeraBridge plugin for OpenLuup
                • Migrate all my reactor sensors from Vera to OpenLuup
                • Delete al scenes and Plug Ins on Vera
                • Use OpenLuup to make new reactors

                Now I have come to the point of purchasing a UZB1 stick. I want to use it with the help of home assistant or domoticz.

                My vera has a problem. Everything works perfectly, but when I log in via home.getvera sometimes I see the following message on different devices:
                • Please wait! Polling node
                • SUCCESS! Successfully polled node
                • Can't Detect Device
                • Error: node is not configured

                I had contact Vera support about the problem. I must reset my Vera completely and build from scratch again!

                I don't want to include this problem in my new zwave installation. That is why I want to start building from scratch with UZB1 stick. I have about 40 devices. It's a lot of work, but I hope to build a stable system. That's the reason I want to build a new zwave network.

                Sorry for the poor English but I am using google translate.

                rafale77 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • rafale77
                  rafale77 @Edwin1972 last edited by rafale77

                  Hi Edwin,

                  I am not a native english speaker myself and your post was very clear.
                  The vera errors are mostly caused by the vera "maintenance" features.
                  It's important to understand that there are two layers of configurations which the vera mixes in their management system. One is the software level which is done by the luup engine or in more generic terms the host controller software, and another layer which is the zwave chip level. They each store different device data and the vera reads the data both from the zwave chip non volatile memory and the user configuration file (user_data.json). Your issues could be caused by either one of the configuration but.... When you transfer your network to another controller, other controllers, unlike the vera, can very easily get the device reconfigured without excluding and restarting the whole process. The vera support advice is what I call "shotgunning" at the problem without trying to understand what is wrong which is completely unacceptable to me. They are just hoping that starting from scratch will fix the problem. Kind of like the vera restarts and reloads. It is a recommendation out of ignorance and despair. I would completely ignore their advices. They are inaccurate and not a scalable solution.

                  The only case of real required exclusion/reinclusion for z-wave is the security key exchange which is allowed by the devices only during the inclusion process. The rest is all data corruption which can easily be recovered through a reconfiguration either with a NIF/Discovery call at the zwave level or a reconfiguration of the host controller data. The root cause for most of these data corruption is rarely at the zwave level (It can only happen if there are some corrupted data coming from the zwave RF which usually are caused by data collision from overly chatty networks), it is often due to the host controller software. The vera is very prone to both these problems because of its "maintenance" design which is not scalable beyond a handful of devices.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • E
                    Edwin1972 last edited by Edwin1972

                    @rafale77, Thank you for your comment and sharing your knowledge
                    Do you have a suggestion to solve the problem with my VeraPlus?

                    If I understand correctly, I can set my UZB dongle as slave of VeraPlus and later on I can move the VeraPlus devices without moving the problem to the UZB dongle.

                    I'm still not sure if I need to set up a separate Pi4 for use UZB dongle with home assists or Can I connect the UZB dongle to my existing Pi4 running OpenLuup, Node-Red and Grafana and install Home assistant.

                    S rafale77 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • S
                      sender @Edwin1972 last edited by

                      @Edwin1972 I would go the route to install openzwave (QT), natively in home assistant with a UZB or other zwave dongle (I have aeotec gen5). Then integrate vera in homeassistant and that way you will have "2" zwave networks. Any device failing in Vera include in openzwave and any new devices also. Logic can be done in homeassistant natively or node red (what I use). Rocksolid, superflexible and bringing back fun in home automation.
                      I only have to worry about "other stuff" not working (automations, wifi, etc.) and not about a vera, openluup, zway, etc... 😇.

                      The community.home-assistant.io forum is "alive"! For me it feels like the early Vera forum days, before I was banned for 1000 years there. I never looked back!

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • rafale77
                        rafale77 @Edwin1972 last edited by

                        @Edwin1972

                        I don't share @sender's level of enthusiasm for home-assistant/openzwave and it's good to have a diversity of inputs.
                        Home-assistant is becoming a bit of a mess and becoming more and more difficult to manage with all the container/supervisor structure. openzwave is also work in progress and is still very far from the stability and control you get from z-way.
                        I run home assistant but started my own fork because it has areas of inefficiencies and gaps in functionality while providing an outstanding integration base.

                        You understood correctly, you can add the uzb dongle as a secondary controller to your vera network if you so desire to see how it works out for you and when you decide to migrate, you can just exclude it and do what I did as I described on my github page and on my blog page. Basically have the vera replace its internal zwave chip with the uzb and then take the uzb to whichever controller you want be it z-way or openzwave.

                        As sender said, you can use practically any other usb zwave stick, the aeotec would be the only ones I would not recommend because of its proprietary non upgradable firmware. The gen5 is stuck on a very old SDK which won't support any of the zwave+ new features and Aeotec just released a gen5+ with still an older SDK than what the uzb currently has.
                        The uzb presents the advantage to work on both z-way and openzwave amongst many other platform and being very up to date in terms of firmware.

                        akbooer 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • akbooer
                          akbooer @rafale77 last edited by

                          @rafale77 said in Second Z-wave netwerk or slave controler:

                          The uzb presents the advantage to work on both z-way and openzwave

                          ...did you mean "openLuup"?

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                          • rafale77
                            rafale77 last edited by

                            No, I did mean z-way and openzwave as the zwave host controller. 🙂
                            openzwave would then be bridged into home assistant and z-way into openluup. These are two possible approaches...
                            Obviously if one has largely invested into the vera in terms of automation (scenes) openluup-z-way is the much simpler/easiest approach but if someone wants to start from scratch like @sender did... well I would still pick the same approach but some people may prefer going to the more integrated but less complete in z-way term home-assistant approach.

                            There is something to the complexity of managing linux dependencies which has lead to the whole container approach. Some people really prefer this immediate ease of implementation. I really don't as I think in the long run, it is replacing an immediate inconvenience with another higher level of inefficiency and complexity which eventually will be even more complex and tedious to run. It is where home assistant is at today and why I forked my own version and won't run it "supervised" nor will install any containerized integration on it.
                            It is philosophically not so different from the downspin of the vera trying to do unnecessary maintenances thinking it would improve customer convenience without thinking about the scalability and the opportunity cost of the approach.

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                            • E
                              Edwin1972 last edited by Edwin1972

                              @rafale77. Thanks again for your information. If I understand correctly, I am on the right track with UZB-stick only you advisor to purchase the z-way software. I think this can be done by purchasing a UZB stick, including license. I think there is also a bridge between Z-way and openluup and I can use openluup as logic (reactor from Rigpapa) for my automation.

                              The question remains whether I can run openluup, node-red, grafana and also Z-way with UZB on my RP4 or is it better to run a new Pi4 with UZB-stick and z-way next to the existing Pi4?

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                              • rafale77
                                rafale77 last edited by rafale77

                                I think you can run all of them on a single rPi4. They are not resource intensive at all. The only thing I would caution with the rPi is the sd-card which is notoriously unreliable. I would try to run everything from a larger SATA SSD. There are many tutorial showing how to do this online. You could also even run all this on a rPi3B which has less of a overheating problem.

                                If you don't already have one purchased, I would recommend to buy something like this:

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                                Which would give you a lot more configurability, ease of installation, reliability, lower power consumption, lower heat, more processing headroom and will come out to be cheaper than the rPi4 at the end after you take the power supply, the storage and the case under consideration.

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                                • LibraSun
                                  LibraSun last edited by

                                  Is there any way I could leverage an unused ezlo Atom (v2) to act as a repeater in my Vera Plus setup?

                                  I do not foresee using the Atom in any other way, and since it's a plug-in, it could be handy (I think!) for extending the range of my Z-Wave network a bit.

                                  Something tells me this -- asking a controller to act as a device -- is not even possible. But still had to ask!

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                                  • rafale77
                                    rafale77 last edited by

                                    It would have to have a firmware to do that so as to act as a routing node. Given the nature of the device... not sure if it is possible. You already know what I did with mine...

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