I’ve been running a hybrid setup using an ISY994i and a Vera for the last year. THe ISY994i does my lights, motion sensors, flood/leak sensors, etc and the Vera connects to my power meters, door locks and thermostats. Thanks to the GREAT ISY plugin for Vera, I’ve had pretty good luck.
That said, the Vera is just not “rock solid” like I’d prefer. It freaks out about once every 2-3 months and requires a restart/power-cycle to get back to normal. Twice it’s completely “lost” all the Zwave devices, requiring a restore. It’s too sketchy for me.
By comparison, the ISY has been solid as a rock. I’ve been doing automation for 20+ years and until the ISY/Vera, mostly built all my own software and I expect 99.99999999999% uptime. Vera doesn’t cut it and I’ve lost trust.
So I’m considering getting the ZWave module for the ISY and want to migrate my Zwave setup from the Vera to the ISY. If that gets screwed up, I’m going to have a LOT of work to undo, so wanted to see if anyone else has done this.
If so, was it difficult to use the built-in stuff to migrate to the ISY and set it as the primary controller? Did you have to re-add any devices?
I also have the ISY but I use it strictly as an interface for Vera for Insteon devices. While the Vera has a lot of warts, the ISY is just no where near as powerful as Vera when you use community code. ISY is lacking severely in features, development on it is even slower than from Vera LLC, and the owner doesn’t understand home automation (one example: he told me directly 3 years ago he’d never do Zwave because it would not become anything popular)
While I’m not 100% happy with Vera’s lack of stability I have found it to be 99.9% reliable by doing the following…
Vera 3 + UI5 + don’t use a USB memory card + nightly reboot
My Vera has a lot going on… 16 Apps (PLEG, Vera Alerts, and more) and connected to: Kodi, EVL3 (Vista 20p), Wink, ISY, MyQ
These are things that the ISY can’t even dream of doing.
If you are doing pretty simple stuff or want to code everything yourself then ISY might be the way to go… but then why not go to OpenHAB and don’t be constrained by any closed system.
I’m ood on Vera for now but I suspect OpenHAB will mature in 1-2 years and I’ll move to that.
I guess I don’t share your optimism. The vera has to be rebooted constantly and I have to restore from backup about once every 60 days or so (it starts forgetting/losing ZWave devices). UI7 has been an unending disaster. I’ve done all the recommended items to keep Vera stable and it’s better, but not “set it and forget it” reliable.
I have to disagree about your assessment of the ISY - the programming language is much more powerful and the unit is rock solid. In 2+ years, it has never stopped, broke, needed a reboot, etc. There are new OS updates coming out every few months (I have upgraded my unit 8 times since I got it) and they all add functions and work better than last version. As for ZWave, if your story is accurate, it shows that they were able to realize that things change, that they were wrong and change directions. The ISY ZWave support it very robust now and very well supported.
I agree that the ISY doesn’t allow plugins like the Vera, but in my opinion, a number of Vera plugins are working around Vera problems (PLEG is great, but exists because of the extreme limitations of the Vera automation scripting/programming ability). In OS5, they are adding support for node servers which will allowing virtually any external device/automation system into the ISY world.
I like and use OH myself and have been relieving the Vera of virtually any logic it had and moving it to OH. Right now, vera is simple my ZWave interface and a gateway to the ISY via the Plugin. And it’s still not 100% reliable.
My intention now is to create a full ISY->OH interface, add the ZWave module to the ISY and migrate ZWave over. Once done, I’ll be decommissioning the vera.
I loved the idea of Vera and it was my first commercial controller (all previous HA over the last 20+ years has been custom code), but the automation language abilities, lack of a rock steady engine and the disaster that is UI7 tell me that MCV has lost it’s way and for my own sanity/stability, I need to move on.
No help from me, but I’ll be following with interest. My choice was in between the ISY and Vera. I chose Z-Wave over Insteon (not wanting single source) and at that time ISY Z-Wave support wasn’t ready for prime time.
My thought… ISY is a better device but Vera + Plugins have better capabilities. I do think plugins are a boon and a detriment to Vera. It creates a better user experience but it also removes the impetus of GetVera to create a better product. Plugins hide the deficiencies of the Vera.
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