So, I have 2 - HA07, 1 - GE 45631, and 1 - minimote, a Monster AVL, plus a couple of the Vizia 4 scene controllers and one of the 2 scene controllers and I have almost no easy control over my z wave. The issue is really, I need a SIMPLE, intuitive way to bring my wife in on all this HA and so far I can’t find anything and would love some input.
I don’t want to have to give her an in depth explanation of how to turn lights on and off, she has been doing that at the wall her whole life and has a firm grasp of how that work. I need to make HA something she wants, not tolerates. Yes, we have both of the iPhone apps but the reality is, in most cases you can just get up and hit the switch faster than you can open the app and find the switch you’re looking for. I need something that’s familiar, or at least easy to repeat in different rooms so that once she learns, she can easily use everywhere. I want something that doesn’t have a bunch of extra buttons that might or might not do something if you accidentally hit one of them. I want something that I can easily update in Vera so if for some reason I have to re-include a switch I can update that controller/remote at the same time.
I honestly don’t know what this magical device looks like but it really needs to exist somewhere.
[quote=“mbairhead, post:1, topic:167358”]So, I have 2 - HA07, 1 - GE 45631, and 1 - minimote, a Monster AVL, plus a couple of the Vizia 4 scene controllers and one of the 2 scene controllers and I have almost no easy control over my z wave. The issue is really, I need a SIMPLE, intuitive way to bring my wife in on all this HA and so far I can’t find anything and would love some input.
I don’t want to have to give her an in depth explanation of how to turn lights on and off, she has been doing that at the wall her whole life and has a firm grasp of how that work. I need to make HA something she wants, not tolerates. Yes, we have both of the iPhone apps but the reality is, in most cases you can just get up and hit the switch faster than you can open the app and find the switch you’re looking for. I need something that’s familiar, or at least easy to repeat in different rooms so that once she learns, she can easily use everywhere. I want something that doesn’t have a bunch of extra buttons that might or might not do something if you accidentally hit one of them. I want something that I can easily update in Vera so if for some reason I have to re-include a switch I can update that controller/remote at the same time.
I honestly don’t know what this magical device looks like but it really needs to exist somewhere.[/quote]
I agree with everything you said. I have minimotes in each room that I have labeled the buttons, but anything with just a bunch of buttons fails the intuitive user interface test. I was wondering if the little touchscreen Barry from ASIHome was talking about here:
I believe it has the same issue as the HA07’s, if you use Vera to set them up to run scenes then half the buttons don’t do anything or do the unexpected, which is worse. Also, while it would be familiar fixture in the house to put them in every room, the buttons wouldn’t do the same thing and again, they can’t easily be labeled. So she (well both of us) would have to learn what each one did in each room…sort of a hassle.
Maybe I need to reel in my expectations a bit and just start setting these remotes up at the switches and not at Vera. That kinda blows for two reasons though. Half the time I do that I screw it up and the secondary controller takes control of the switch and I have to un-include and re-include and then figure out what scenes I’ve screwed up and go fix those. The second thing is they are very limited. If I set them up to run individual lights then I can’t run scenes (duh right?), but a big part of bringing my wife (or anyone not sitting down to Vera on a regular basis) into this project is for her to be able to do stuff like get in bed at night, hit a button that turns off all the lights, locks the doors and sets the downstairs thermostat -or- get out of bed in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and have her way dimly lit for her.
So, after further consideration I want this magical device to be set up in each room with a clear explanation of what each button does on the unit (somehow). I ALSO want it to have access to the entire house if needed. I want it to have common scenes easy to get to for the room it’s set up in (like the going to bed scene mentioned above). I don’t have any delusions that this magical device would be cheap but if I drop the money, it needs to actually do what it says and not be another “Well MCV is working very hard to get that to work…maybe in the next update”.
[quote=“CMRancho, post:3, topic:167358”]I agree with everything you said. I have minimotes in each room that I have labeled the buttons, but anything with just a bunch of buttons fails the intuitive user interface test. I was wondering if the little touchscreen Barry from ASIHome was talking about here:
That’s actually what got me going on this. I was reading that it can only be set up as a secondary controller which means I can’t load scenes on it. I would buy 5 of those things today if it crossed that one hurdle. I’ve started working on my own UI using a bunch of these monitors and possibly a few of these USB wireless extenders where I can’t get CAT6 easily with one of these USB over CAT# adapters. My issue with this project (other than time) is the unknown. Somewhere in there is a FAIL and I’m worried I won’t find it until I’m chin deep in it.
I really like SQ Remote on my iPhones, but I need something like that to run on a less expensive, always on device I can have in every room of the house and out on the deck. Probably two in the bedroom - one on each side of the bed. That way, each could be set to display the devices and scenes for the room it’s in, but it would be easy to flip to another room if you needed to. Maybe I should just buy six or eight of an older version of the iPhone (they aren’t terribly expensive) and then leave them plugged in and never sleeping… it wouldn’t be elegant, but would definitely pass the intuitive UI test!
Ya, I really like it too. I wish they’d release a computer app (pref Mac in my case) so I could just set up a bunch of little touch screens all over the house and not mess with any programming. I do have a beef with it though (you can roll your eyes here due to mbairhead bitching so much), it takes a LOT of maintenance. Maybe it’s just me but I seem to be adding and removing things from my network endlessly and if you don’t stay on top of it with the SQ, it gets out of control quick since it doesn’t remove dead/removed devices and it doesn’t indicate which ones are working and which aren’t. On the other hand…When the new apple tv is fully jail broken and we can load our apps on it, SQ Remote will be the first on it for me.
What you say is true, but I’m envisioning a day when I have my system pretty much the way I want it. At that point, keeping SQ Remote up to date would be easy. And it’s not hard to use one iPhone as the master and clone the system out to the others. But in my ideal world, I’d have a way to just log all my iPhones into my account and they’d all sync automagically.
Now I’m thinking that each iPhone could be equipped with one of those wireless charging case/pad units. That way they’d work untethered, and would stay charged when you set them down. Dang! This is sounding very doable.
What I really, really want is voice recognition in every room to operate everything, but the microphones haven’t been developed to make this possible yet.
Now you’re getting into some serious Minority Report stuff there
So, I’ve been chewing on this for a while and now I think it needs to be MORE!!! But the reality is, basically I (we) need a browser, that’s really it. So I started thinking "touch screen - browser - music - ip cams - tv?
My “wants” list started to look something like this, it needs to be somewhat self contained, mountable, touch screen, not look hacked together (presentable). Since I’m using a screen I want to be able to stream video to it too. I also have a large music collection that I wouldn’t mind getting to either.
So, an Apple TV for just $99 with aTV Flash installed for $19 would give me…wifi, a browser, access to my entire media collection. I need a HDMI touch screen too so I was looking at the Lilliput FA 1046 which is a wall mountable 10" touch screen for $279.
So the grand total is $379 and I suspect that could be brought down a bit with some shopping. The next step will be to build a UI. I have a home server with apache on it and being a web designer I think that’s under control. The only issue I have is a COMPLETE and TOTAL lack of knowledge of how to create a UI for Vera. Oh, and time.
one more thought
If MCV ever get the SQ Puck plug in built that opens up a bunch more options.
Personally, I also think SQ Remote is the key here, if you have iPhones or iPod touches.
I sort of think you need to start by figuring out what devices you want to control, and why. Make a list, and actually think about it a bit.
Once you have planned that out, start installing your new network. Don’t give you wife control over the system with SQ Remote until you have used it for a couple of weeks. You’ll find that the most important part of the usability is the ergonomics of the interface. What controls go where, and on what pages.
Once you have used it and tweaked it, THEN, you can clone your setup to her iPhone. Show her how it works, and let her try it out.
I never would have thought that my wife would actually use her iPhone to control the house. In reality, she uses it quite frequently! And I don’t think I ever got a question about how to do something. It was very intuitive for her.
Same issue with SQ, it takes to long to get to where you want to be. It’s not their fault, its simply an issue of loading the app and finding the room and then finding the light you’re trying to control. If it takes longer to get to the place on the app than it does to just go hit the button then it’s probably not really an effective way of doing it. I am starting to see SQ as more of a remote, remote. It works great away from home but the iPhone is a lousy remote control (in my opinion). I want to pick something up and hit a button…that’s it. Short of that, I want to walk up to a display and hit a scene and be done.
What I’ll probably do is buy another Monster remote for the bedroom which does just that. The only difference is you have to set up the scenes in their software not Vera’s. It’s the only other remote I know of that you can do that with.
This doesn’t mean I’m not going to try the Apple TV thing too. It is going to be a lot of work but in the end, super cool.
My wife has adopted iPhone control through SQremote pretty easily and we’ve both found that sometimes switches are still more useful to use! (also neither in her case when she forgets to switch stuff off… grr!)
Now although I like the whole custom browser thing, I think it still sounds too expensive to set up in multiple locations.
@CMRancho, I think has the right idea with an SQRemote / iPhone on a per room basis! I know @Shady had also considered something similar, and was thinking about going as far as wall mounting something.
An 8Gig touch 4G can be had for as little as $200 and I’m sure if you shopped around then an older gen one could be had for less… especially if used ones are considered! http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=5322.0
The other option is to get the lights automated with a combination of movement sensors, light sensors and door sensors which is the way I’m starting lean towards!
As a new user to vera, my question is not quite as in-depth as some others.
I can’t seem to figure out how to pair my vera 2 with my z-wave ge wall dimmer. I can put the vera into “include mode” by hitting the small button on the back of the unit and getting the green light on the front to blink. But I cannot figure out how to get the wall switch to then pair with it. I have tapped the wall switch, held it down and generally tried all manner of things to get the green light on the vera2 to flutter, indicating it has been paired. Can anyone help me with this? Much appreciated!!
One the switch is installed in the wall, the GE dimmers I have only require me to turn the light on (the switch) after putting the Vera2 into “include” mode. If that doesn’t work, you probably have to put the vera2 into “exclude” mode and do the same thing (turn the light switch on) so as to exclude it before you can include it.
I would love to use some motion sensors but I can’t get mine to work and previous posts haven’t really rendered much help so I’ve sort of ruled them out as “not working with MY Vera”…which I’m discovering is a real answer to some problems.
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