Just a heads up to any new Vera users that may experience this issue. My Vera (2) arrived yesterday and while the Vera itself works great, the battery pack that was included will not take a charge, and fails to power the Vera. I hooked it up to a multimeter and confirmed that it is trickling some power, but not enough to power the unit, and for one reason or another it will not accept a charge from the included wall charger (no green light, and no increase in power of the battery after being plugged in overnight).
I called Smarthomeusa.com (my reseller) who kindly refereed me to speak to MCV directly. They are shipping me a replacement battery and charger today.
I’ve been able to join a few devices to the vera by just moving the unit to be nearby them in the mean time, but will be looking forward to the replacement battery arriving.
Thumbs up to MCV for providing this fast and free replacement for me so I can get up and running.
It has been exactly a year since this post. If you are still on this board, did you get a new battery pack from MCV and did it work? I just received my first Vera2 2 weeks ago and the battery pack would not power the unit, although it charged up fine overnight. I tried again last week, but still would not power the Vera. I wound up having to use 200 feet of extension cords to take Vera to all my devices.
Me too. My Vera is about a month old, but the battery pack would not work. I’ve been able to manage with extension cords, but I’d like to get the pack replaced. What’s the process?
How many others, I wonder? A USB dongle seems to me a much better method to learn the network, plus the fact that it would serve as a backup copy of all the nodes in the event of a needed reset or firmware updates - I wish they would not have abandoned it!
My battery pack also died. I was curious as to why and took it apart. The wires to the plug were not soldered properly and were held together with hot glue. I wonder where the packs are manufactured?
The instruction sheet to the battery pack gave us a good laugh. ;D That was about the use I got out of it, as the battery appears to be of the same quality as the written English.
I always use full-power inclusion. Most nodes in my house can be reached directly (including 2 floors up). For those that can not, or when testing, I take Vera to the floor or room where the node is located, and plug her into an outlet; no extension cord. Then use a netbook or an iDevice to do the inclusions.
You are a patient man oTi@ since Vera takes so long to boot up every time you unplug her. You also failed to mention that in order to do as you have suggested, you need to have Vera acting as a bridge to a Wi-Fi access point since you need to be connected to the MiOS server to use the Dashboard for full-power inclusion. Many of us don’t have a wireless router, besides Vera herself.
Yep, it takes a while to boot. That’s where I go do other stuff and then return. But as said, I hardly ever have to do this, or move her once to a more central location for the devices under test.
[...]you need to be connected to the MiOS server to use the Dashboard for full-power inclusion.
Not at all. More detail:
With Vera in her normal spot she is wired into my LAN (ETH1 port on Vera), which includes a wireless router. Vera gets a static address (192.168.y.z) from my router. I then just do full-power inclusions from an iDevice anywhere in the house, where possible.
If I have to move Vera to another spot, I use a netbook. The netbook’s wired LAN interface is set up for Vera’s default subnet (192.168.81.x), as the netbook uses its wireless interface to connect to the LAN. I connect Vera and the netbook with a LAN cable (ETH2 port on Vera). Vera is at 192.168.81.1. No internet connection for Vera. Set the time/date manually.
Typically, I have Vera’s wireless LAN disabled, but when you enable it, you could connect wirelessly to her from any device and do the same.
I always access Vera directly on my LAN (and through VPN/SSH from outside).
So, if no full-power inclusion from normal spot → disconnect Vera’s LAN cable from switch, disconnect from power → connect to power somewhere else, plug LAN cable into netbook → wait for boot up, set time/date → go.
I thought the battery was put in to weigh the box down so it wouldn’t blow away when the UPS guy dropped off Vera or possibly a blunt object…if ever needed. I think mine worked once (maybe twice) and I’m doubt I could find it at this point. I submitted a ticket just after UI4 but MCV was going through that faze where they didn’t respond to customers so I didn’t hear back. Being a man with a shockingly short attention span, I haven’t thought about it until I read this post.
Note that the power switch on the battery must be on for the charger to charge the battery. It is a little bit counter-intuitive, but this is how it works. Just in case someone has not tried this.
Yeah… Tried that also after I couldn’t power Vera the first time, charged overnight with power switch ON. Red LED glows profusely regardless - doesn’t mean squat! The transformer has 2 LEDs on it, one is red, which glows the whole time, the other could be any color imaginable and presumably will glow when the battery pack is charged… NOT! It never glows, only the red one does… Always and forever. Vera will not power up with the battery pack regardless. There’s only so much time that one can devote to figuring things out that should work as advertised, and quite frankly, I am becoming disenchanted with this whole experience. I am a total Newbie with ZWave, but as the previous owner of 3 alarm companies, have had years of experience with home automation, dating back to DTMF tones via modem to control everything. MCV has a ways to go with this technology and the marketing thereof in my opinion.
I did (eventually…had to call them a few times) get a new battery, and it worked just fine. I’ve honestly only used it a few times though as I almost always to full power inclusion now which doesn’t require moving the vera around. The only time I’ve had to move vera in the past 6 months was to properly include a deadbolt. In this case I just brought it upstairs and plugged it in.
My battery is roughly 6 months old. I have used it to include only a handful of devices. After a full charge, it will now only last about 15 minutes, whereas when it was new it could power the vera for over an hour.
:o Wow, impressive. I got maybe something like @holger_40 reported out of it, 15 minutes or so, can do some inclusions but then it dies. Haven’t used it since. Flaky quality control I guess.
Yep, it takes a while to boot. That’s where I go do other stuff and then return. But as said, I hardly ever have to do this, or move her once to a more central location for the devices under test.