It is with great pleasure that we would like to announce the release of “iVera”— a new native iPhone application dedicated to your Vera system!
iVera is a simple and efficient home automation remote control solution for Vera users. iVera allows you to remotely control your lights (switches and dimmers), thermostats, sensors, cameras, and door locks … all while maintaining your existing Scenes. The Home button automatically detects and organizes all your Vera sections and their corresponding rooms in order to give you easy access to all devices within a specific location.
iVera is easy to use and provides two access options: local network and findvera.com. If you are already connected to your local network, iVera will automatically find your Vera IP upon the initial application launch. Once saved, iVera is ready to serve your home automation needs. If you are connected using another network, you can input your findvera.com access login and password and iVera can control your house from anywhere in the world. If both access options are set up, iVera will automatically select the appropriate network for you: your local network when you are at home and findvera.com when you are away from home.
iVera is entering its final beta testing stage prior to becoming available in the Apple App Store. If you are interested in testing iVera in exclusivity and providing some feedback, please email iVera-beta@thinkiwi.com for more information.
In the meantime, you will find a couple of screenshots attached to this thread.
iVera, control your house . . . easily and from anywhere!
Sincerely,
The iVera Team
I tried both SQ and iVera…
Thumbs up for this one, and thanks for taking me as a beta tester.
If I can share my experience with other users, SQ was a pain in the butt to setup. It looks powerfull, but the documentation was not that good. I’d like other to share their view with me and tell me how long it took them to configure just one or two carousels.
On the other hand, iVera is pretty straight forward. It discovered the VERA on my network, I granted access to findvera.com , and I had nothing to do at all. All my scenes were present, and all the modules that I am using. Time spent for setup: 15 seconds.
Waaaay too long, that’s for sure! The SQ remote app is an exercise in tedium. In fact, I didn’t even ask to part of the beta program for iVera because I assumed it would be just as much of a pain to setup. Now that I hear that it just works out of the box (gasp!), I’m very interested in trying it out.
Just out of curiosity… who is iVera made by? I assume it’s not made by MiCasaVerde or SQ Connect. Is it just a lone developer?
I agree that the setup of SQ Remote is a pain, but that once set up it’s very elegant and works very nice (at least until the defective upgrade released yesterday that killed my connection, but they’ve addressed that problem quickly and are working on a fix).
I agree that other applications in this space will be welcome, especially those requiring less front-end effort, which is fine for us technophiles, but won’t fly with the masses.
No pain here. I think the beauty of SQ Remote is that you can go as light or as heavy as you want. I was able to have my entire house set up in SQ Remote in a matter of 20-30 minutes. It was extremely easy for me, but I could have taken a bit more time to create specialized status pages for sensors and have special labels or frames, etc.
iVera seems to be closer to what MCV was talking about in their original video. Basically the Smart Phone Plug-in, but as a native app instead. I could see myself buying and using both for different conditions. While iVera is strictly Vera control, SQ Remote has plans to control more than just Vera.
I truly hear you on the less than optimum initial setup in SQ Remote v1
We are working on making the setup a lot easier… and suggestions are very welcome, and we would appreciate them being added to the square connect feature request forum (squareconnect.com).
Thanks for everyone’s support in these early days.
This looks great. I look forward to it. I tried the SQ app and after 20 minutes turned it away. It’s way to complicated. Vera and the iPhone were made to be intuitive and easy. The SQ app goes against these basic principals in my opinion.
iVera is very nice and could not be simpler to setup and use. That’s a huge plus!
While I do really like the SQ Remote UI after I spent a good bit of time learning to set it up, I have to say that the sheer simplicity of iVera is highly welcome. Nice job!
I agree wholeheartedly. The IVera app is very easy to use and setup. Looking forward to see what comes next. I would like to see a desktop gadget with the IVera app as well. That way I could check on my vacation house settings whenever I am at my desk without pulling out the Ipod Touch.
I hope you rethink your stance on Android.
It’s use is growing rapidly in the market. The HTC EVI comes out next month…the first WIMAX phone and that’s just going give Android another boost. There’s already a robust market that’s growing by leaps and bounds every day.
Also, consider that Android and Vera go together well considering the open source nature of both as opposed to Apple.
I just ask that you all conduct some more research on it please.
Desktop Gadgets can be always open on your desktop without opening a browser. For instance, I have 3 panasonic cameras on the exterior of my house. They are open all the time using desktop gadgets which display the camera pictures only, no browser frame, no controls, just the picture. It updates continuously so I always have a current view of my house and surroundings. I also have a weather gadget that continuously displays the local temp & weather at my vacation home. It would be great to have a similar gadget that would show the thermostat or motion/door sensor status. Gadgets are always in the backgound, so don’t get in the way like an open browser window would.
