I have an Omni LT that has several motion sensors and a bunch of lines of code that I’ve built over the last 10 years for automation (mostly lighting control), and really don’t look forward to the idea of s**t canning everything that I’ve built in it.
I know that there are other systems that will integrate and play nicely with Vera, but I just have too much time and energy invested in the setup I have to start over without trying to get this thing to talk to Vera.
I have it integrated with a Xantech MRC88 control system, and a Nortel MICS phone system so that I can push an autodial button on the phone when I walk out the door to turn off all the Audio/Video and fireplaces in the house and arm the alarm when I walk out the door. The doorstation for the phone system pauses DVD player and pulls up front door video on the theater TV when someone comes to the door, etc, etc, yada, yada, yada.
Most of it is a hodge podge of events triggered thru contact closures to and from the Omni and Xantech systems, and my wife would freak out if I started replacing everything with new Z-Wave compatible plug and play devices. Not to mention the hit to my 401-k that doing everything that I have now would require.
Is it at all possible to integrate the Omni by simply using some sort of device connected to the Vera that provides momentary closure relays to “arm” and “disarm” and/or use the zone inputs to trigger events based on some sort of GPIO device controlled by Vera.
It would be great to have the Omni able to report arm/disarm status thru the remote, as well as temperature from the Omni temperature sensors, etc…but I have a feeling that is going to be a full blown coding nighmare that would take the rest of my life to figure out based on the serching I’ve been doing here.
Am I missing something that’s obvious to all of you here who’ve been playing with these things for a lot longer than I have?
Thanks in advance for any help or direction anyone can provide.
I suspect that with a lot of Vera code work and possibly intermediate devices like RaspberryPi or Arduinos acting as gateways you could integrate the two systems. I don’t really have a good answer for you. However, shifting into solution provider mode, I can’t help wonder what problem you are trying to solve?
The idea of Vera is to facilitate the creation of a DIY home automation system with a fairly simply interface and wireless(Z-Wave) devices/nodes, removing the difficulty and complexity of hard wiring sensors and switches as well as coding a management interface and automation such as is the case with most previous and more expensive home automation systems.
But, it sounds to me like you’ve already done the work, hard wiring your relays and sensors, coding an interface and automation, establishing integration with several disparate systems… It sounds like the work is already done, so what do you hope to gain from Vera?
I too would be unwilling discard all the work and hardware for the new system unless there was significant benefit. It seems that it would be much easier to add another switch to your existing system than it would be to remove and replace everything with Vera for negligible gain.
Thanks Z-Waver, your point is well taken. I guess I’m considering a number of advantages to integrating the Vera into the home, some probably more usefull than others. The idea of getting some of the things that I’ve been accomplishing with the “telephone” interface to work with one of the control apps for Vera without having to switch back and forth on my iPhone from one app to another to view IP Cameras, seeing the HAI temp sensor displays remotely in the Vera App (only way to get to them now is to “dial into” the HAI panel from off site or local).
Would like to figure out if there is a way to (GPIO perhaps) be notified on my iPhone instantly when the UPS guy (or anyone else) pushes the doorbell button so that I can establish communication right away and see them (with my non Z-Wave enabled Intellinet IP cameras).
All things considered I suspect that you are correct in that most anything is possible, just a matter of whether it’s ever going to make sense to actually have them communicating directly with one another.
Pardon the Newbie question, but are the devices that you have suggested GPIO type units that I can program to make use of one of the home control apps that interface with Vera…? Program buttons in the app that would have an underlying “contact closure” initiate to do some of those things with in the same app…? I dunno, just trying to figure out what can be done to try better to understand how to do it.
Thanks again for your response.
I see. I too suffer from app envy from time to time and it sucks.
The Raspberry Pi and Arduino are both GPIO able cheap and low power computing platforms. But they will require real programming(not point and click) as well as circuit based wiring to make them do what you want.
There is no such thing as a Z-Wave camera. The so called Z-Wave cameras are IP cameras like any other. What you describe is usually done within the iPhone app, where the alert causes the app to retrieve the camera URL it is not a Z-Wave thing.
I’m not familiar with the Omni, frankly I was shocked just to learn that Leviton had bought HAI, but I would hope there would be some third party apps for it, if Leviton wasn’t improving their own app.
The Vera uses the LUA scripting language for its programming and plugins. It can interact with external devices via UPnP and HTTP calls, in and out. If you have the programming capability you may be able to integrate Vera with your setup, but I don’t know if app envy is worth the cost, trouble, or unhappy wife just yet.
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