I received a Vera2, hooked it up, and everything showed up fine on the interface. I added one of my Aeon Labs Door/Window sensors and it was recognized quickly. I then proceeded to add a Fortrezz Strobe/Siren SSA2 and that’s when the problems started. It showed up as a dimmable light, which seemed incorrect. After much maneuvering to remove the SSA2, I removed the Z-wave network to start from scratch. I reinstalled the UI2 firmware and again everything looked good, until I wanted to add those devices again. It is not picking the Aeon sensor at all, after following the steps I followed to add it to the system previously. I also tried to add the SSA2 again and it also won’t pick it up. It seems like the sensor and the siren think they are already on a network and will not pair with the Vera2.
The situation is getting desperate. I have other sensors but I wouldn’t want to pair them just to have this same thing happen again. Any assistance is appreciated.
When you said you removed the zwave network did you physically exclude the devices or just delete them from the UI? You might want to excluding them before including them again.
I also don’t think that UI2 will have the support for the siren either being that its a new device. I believe @myhomeserver has one. You could PM him and see what sort of device his appears as and which UI he’s using (a beta of UI4 I think)
Hi strangely and thanks for your assistance!
I removed the Z-wave network from the UI after trying to exclude the siren, which I couldn’t. I was only able to do this removal of the network under UI4. When trying under UI2 it locked the Vera2. I then went back to UI2 and no Z-wave devices were attached, but the ones that I mentioned did not want to pair again with the Vera2. I tried excluding them again and it did not work. What I ended up doing was adding an HSM100 motion sensor and then started the exclusion process, first with the HSM100 sensor and then the Aeon Labs sensor, followed by the SSA2. This worked for some reason. All sensors were excluded and then I proceeded to include the SSA2 and the door/window sensor again. The SSA2 still shows as a dimmable light and somewhat works. You have the OFF position, 25% and 50% - strobe light only, and 75% and ON - siren only. What I do not have is the siren and strobe light functioning at the same time and I would like to get this working. I will PM @myhomeserver and see if he can help me set the SSA2 up.
I have several things that I want to include in the final system setup but for now I will be approaching this in baby steps. Any help with these baby steps is appreciated.
- I would like to set up a scene where the SSA2 is activated when a door/window sensor is tripped. I also would like to be notified when this happens. I’ve tried playing around with it but I’m still confused about several things like the difference between “a sensor is tripped” vs. “an armed sensor is tripped” in the event settings. I did a test run with the strobe light and it worked when I tripped the window sensor. I had it set up for the strobe light to turn off after 10 seconds and it did. One weird thing is that when I return the sensor to the original position it trips it again. However, this does not happen all the time. Any clues?
I also have some additional questions:
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On Findvera.com, are we limited to a single user accessing the Vera2 online or can we add more individual users that are able to access and control Vera2 from the internet? Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to be one online account per box.
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On Findvera.com I checked the notification box under Settings where it says “Notify me if Vera stops responding, indicating that Vera is having a problem, or that my internet or power has gone down”. I also entered an email address and a number for SMS. I disconnected the power to the Vera2 box but I have not received any notification. I have tried this several times. Also, what if I wanted to receive only an email and not an SMS, there seems to not be a way to enter just an email as it always asks you for a number.
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I am currently working with the Vera2 box in an Eastern Time Zone. However, it will be installed in an Atlantic Time Zone without DST. There does not seem to be an option for this specific configuration under the Location tab. I have already selected the City, but I have not been able to find a way to select the correct Time Zone or to disable DST for the Atlantic Time Zone. Is there a workaround for this?
Thanks in advance for everyone’s help!
For 1) You might try reading this wiki page:
http://wiki.micasaverde.com/index.php/Intro_Security
For 2) I don’t think you can in UI2 or 3 but UI4 allows for this.
For 3 and 4 I don’t have any feedback I’m afraid as I’ve never used the Vera offline notification and it may just be broken anyway because of all the UI4 changes and the access has been completely overhauled anyway with better failover and reliability. I’m also on the west coast so I don’t really know about eastern time zones.
Hopefully they’ll release UI4 soon and your other two problems will be fixed!
There is lots broken in UI4 and although my SSA2 is a Binary Light (ON OFF Switch) it doesn’t work properly in UI4 but did in UI3
I also have major issues getting UI4 to add a new HSM100, so I assume that it’s a broken version…Give it time and they will hopefully add it in and fix this…
@myhomeserver have you tried the .991 version of UI4 yet?
@strangely: I read that link that you posted before opening this thread and while it gave me some sort of idea about what to do, it is immediately apparent that the information on there is not relevant to the latest UI2 firmware. I know a bunch of people have said this before, but MCV needs to update their instructions with every new firmware release. Is there actually a downloadable manual for the Vera2?
Where can I get the latest UI4 beta? I tried the preview UI4 firmware on my Vera2 and it loaded fine, but knowing that it is not a completely finished UI, I reverted to UI2.
Also, when you are setting up a scene, is the event created with the “Add Event” button what would actually cause a scene to activate? It would make more sense to better name/describe these things within the scene menu.
@myhomeserver: I’m curious about why your Vera sees the SSA2 as a Binary Light while mine sees it as dimmable. Mine works great on UI2 except for the fact that I cannot get the strobe light and siren to work simultaneously as that would require a signal value of 255 which apparently is not being sent. I am assuming OFF = 0 (SSA2 is off), 25% = 25 (strobe light is on), 50% = 50 (strobe light is on), and that 75% = 75 (siren is on). These all do what is expected according to the SSA2 instructions. When ON is selected the siren is on but the strobe light is not. I am guessing ON = 100, however, the manual states that to have only the siren on you need a value from 51 to 99, so I am not sure what ON is sending to the SSA2. The SSA2 states that it needs a value of 255 to turn both the siren and the strobe light on. I am guessing there is a way to tell Vera2 to send a 255 value to the SSA2 whenever the ON position is selected, but it is evading me.
I think the only real documentation for UI4 at the moment is here: http://docs.mios.com/doc.php
And this doesn’t seem very comprehensive either.
For the latest beta I would recommend that you wait until its finalized. There was a new version yesterday that fixed some issues with vera2 specifically for the floating point logic and some performance issues on browser startup that it was having among others.
There isn’t much feedback at the moment other than the FP logic is fixed (it was causing thermostat temp reading and timer issues among other things) along with the startup performance issue seems also seems to be fixed. I believe other people are having some other minor issues but nothing major.
There are no new links to the firmware like there used to be to upgrade; a new intelligent system is in place that will load the correct version to your vera. NOTE its now very possible to very easily brick your Vera if you load the wrong version by trying different URLs in the download, so its not advisable to try your luck with the versions. I think there are now two builds. (Vera and Vera2).
If you really cant wait then maybe send MCV an message and ask if you can upgrade to the latest UI4 and ask how to do it.
In any scene where you have a command, if you want any type of event to trigger it then use the “add event” and select the device you would like to use as a trigger. However I’m using the UI4 and the add event dialog is withing the scene control; previously UI3 for so long I cant remember if it was the same in UI2. I’ve attached what it looks like in UI4 now.