Basic Basics!

New to HA and Vera, but Industrial Automation Engineer by trade…

Vera Edge/UI7

So I’ve configured my devices and got a PLEG script running - all thankls to the various how-to’s etc. Thanks to all the contributors here!

What I’m missing are the basics about Vera, and I’ve run out of places to look… any help wlecome! - links are fine as I don’t expect explanation where a bit of reading will do;

What is “Startup Lua”, when does it run and what would you normally put in it (I can get there, but not sure what it’s for!)

A basic readme on Alerts, logs and polling - I’ve read the wiki and tailed the log on my Edge, but it’s a bit meaningless! How do I get visibility on the dashboard of what’s happened when, and how do I control it to make it useful (I’ve already overcome the bug about repeating ancient alerts…)

Is the only way to control (select) device numbers REALLY to start all over again?

Is there a wiki for the dashboard itself - it took me ages to work out that the red/green number was actually the number of devices activated…

All pointers welcome!

Regards, Pat

[quote=“patwestlake, post:1, topic:189693”]What is “Startup Lua”, when does it run and what would you normally put in it (I can get there, but not sure what it’s for!)[/quote]This is Lua/LUUP code that is run at the starting of the LUUP engine, the Vera process. It is very rarely used by end users. One such use would be a LUUP command to hide a device from appearing on the dashboard. 99% of Veras will never use the startup Lua option.

A basic readme on Alerts, logs and polling - I've read the wiki and tailed the log on my Edge, but it's a bit meaningless!
The only real resource for logs is [url=http://wiki.micasaverde.com/index.php/Logs]this Wiki page[/url] and this one about [url=http://wiki.micasaverde.com/index.php/Luup_Loglevels]log levels[/url]. To learn what the logs actually mean, then you'll need to watch the live log and perform actions to see the various commands and what they output into the log. Vera Ltd. never really meant for non-developers to be looking at the logs, so they don't offer any end user level documentation.

With regard to polling, I have many discussions on this forum about it. Just leave polling alone. Everyone thinks that controlling polling is what they need, but there is virtually no reason to change Vera’s polling behavior and almost all polling changes are detrimental. Just no.

How do I get visibility on the dashboard of what's happened when, and how do I control it to make it useful (I've already overcome the bug about repeating ancient alerts...)
I'm not sure just what you want here. There is the live log http://vera_ip/cgi-bin/cmh/log.sh?Device=LuaUPnP beyond that there is also the summary screen which shows upcoming scheduled events, I don't know what there is beyond that. Either things work as expected, or you go to the log file. Or call technical support.
Is the only way to control (select) device numbers REALLY to start all over again?
There are two different device numbers for each device. There is a Vera device number, provided by Vera for every device you add including WiFi devices, alarm zones, X-10... Vera decides these and you have no control over it. There is no known limit to these numbers, but I suspect that the device numbers are a C language integer, which would cap it at around 65,000.

There are also Z-Wave node numbers, frequently and ambiguously referred to as device numbers. These node numbers are set by the Z-Wave controller chip. You have no control over this number and it is limited to the maximum number of Z-Wave devices possible in a network 232. Assignment of these numbers is sequential and count up until the limit is reached, at which point it wraps to the lowest available number and counts up using each next available number.

You cannot control device or node numbers.

Is there a wiki for the dashboard itself - it took me ages to work out that the red/green number was actually the number of devices activated....
Did you see the [url=http://support.getvera.com/]knowledgebase/documentation page?

If you get to writing scene Lua code, then Startup Lua is, in fact, the perfect place to define global procedures which are available for use in individual scenes.

Many thanks to you both!

I get the global variables argument and will bear it in mind for future coding.

OK, Device numbers are a red herring!

Dashboard - I’m wondering if what I really want just isn’t the MCV Vera dashboard! I want to see the devices, their state, any associated values like lux, temperature etc, last triggered, armed/disarmed etc, but in an organised way, not the Vera/MCV way?! Maybe it’s time to audition Imperihome etc?

For alerts/logging, I wanted to understand how I set the value/threshold for a parameter based alert, or the alert for an event (door opening etc) - I need to be able to filter these, so, for instance, I don’t get events for an un-armed sensor.

Am I right in thinking that the continued reporting of historical alarms is un-fixable? I can clear it with

os.execute(“rm /etc/cmh/alerts.json”)
luup.call_action(“urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:HomeAutomationGateway1”, “Reload”, {}, 0)

but they come back again. Eventually. Just why can’t MCV cure this? If an alert is cleared, forget it? Simples? Obviously not!!

Thanks for the pointer to the documentation page - I must have missed that whole link during set-up - they did put that link in there somewhere didn’t they…?

I will get there eventually, and my progress to date has been solely down to this forum and Vesternet.com - thanks a million guys (and girls!)

Best regards, Pat

No, what you want is AltUI: http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/board,78.0.html

@akbooer… ;D

Altui is THE answer!! Why MCV haven’t adopted this as the defacto front end is beyond me. Simple, clean and, more than anything, it works!!

many, many thanks!

Pat