So today marks the point where I’ve really gotten frustrated with the whole thing. Is it my Vera? Is it the inadequacies of Z-wave?
If it isn’t one thing, it’s another.
Yes, this is a rant. Join in (especially if your story is worse).
My story:
I think I have a reasonably small network with a total of about 9 devices. (The 10th is not being used at the moment. An extra Aeon Door/Window Sensor).
1 Yale Deadbolt
3 Leviton Wall Dimmers
1 Aeon Door/Window Sensor (Front Door)
1 Everspring Door/Window Sensor (Garage Door) with a Potter Amseco ODC-59A Overhead Door Switch
3 GE/Jasco Outdoor Light Switches (All used indoor with a fan, filter, and garage door trigger.)
So in theory, a “heal” (aka “repair”) is supposed fix problems with the Z-wave network.
What I’ve found is it has a high chance of screwing things up! >:(
More than once, have I ‘re-added’ a device in hopes of fixing it, and then my Yale Deadbolt no longer works and I have to re-add it as well. This eventually leads to me resetting factory settings on the Vera and re-doing the entire network from scratch. Which I’ve done a few times.
Every time I re-add a device (or reset the Vera), I have to re-do any luup scripts I wrote relative to that device because the device’s ID changed.
Tonight when I get home, I’ll likely end up doing the entire thing over again. Which is a MAJOR pain because I have about 17 scenes which mostly have some custom luup attached to them. So I have to copy paste all of them to a text file and then back again after its all done. I am getting pretty good at the process… But I just wish it would simply work! At one point before I tried to setup the garage with the switch and the sensor, everything worked perfect. As you can imagine, going back and forth to the garage with the Vera (can’t take the devices down) over and over is a pain in itself. Ended up buying a different sensor than the original just to see if it worked better. And it did, for about a day. Just like the other worked ‘okay’ for about a day. ???
Is it going to be like this forever? Z-wave pain? Or is Vera firmware gonna get good enough to make these issues easier? Is everyone willing to wait? Who has bailed out of the whole thing?
Everything was working perfect the day before. Except the garage door sensor wasn’t reporting reliably.
Decided to do a heal… Door sensor no longer responding. AKA Could not configure the device.
Decided to do another heal… Other devices began having issues and could not be configured.
About the middle of last night, most of my devices were no longer configurable and not responding. (Including the Yale Deadbolt which is reasonably near the Vera.)
This morning, ran around with the Vera and re-added (did not remove) the bedroom light switch to get it back and then re=added (removed and then added) the garage door sensor.
At work now: Garage door sensor is still waiting for wakeup to configure. It’s an Everspring, and I have a difficult time understanding when it’s awake or not. I do the triple click and it seems to do something. The Aeon sensors are much easier to configure and deal with but apparently are less reliable at a distance. Yale lock is unreachable even though it is probably less than 15 feet from the Vera.
Ultimately, I feel like I take a risk of starting over, every-time I add a new device.
I won’t be winning the contest, but I have a similar number of Z-wave devices and have almost no issues with my Vera. It has performed with no issues, coming back after power outages (mostly caused by me turning off breakers), reboots, and firmware updates.
On the Z-wave side I have (range from 3ft to 60ft from my Vera):
5- GE/Jasco switches (Model #45609) (4 in a 2-way, 1 in a 3-way configuration with a secondary switch)
3- GE/Jasco outlets (Model #45606) controlling two table lamps and a doorbell
1- Honeywell YTH8320 Thermostat
I have had zero issues with the z-wave devices. Could the battery operated sensors be causing the issues your network?
Additionally, I have four Foscam cameras integrated with the Vera. Since the most recent plug-in has been out (Version 2.2), I have ahd no issues.
3- Foscam FI8910W fully integtrated (i.e. motion sensors are fully operational)
1- Foscam FI9820W partially integrated (the H.264 have competely different software which isn’t supported by the plug-in).
Maybe I have just been lucky but I couldn’t ask for the Vera to perform any better.
I have had some z-wave issues in the past but thanks to the members here in the forum (especially garrettwp) I think I am getting more and more confident in handling bigger networks as well.
If you have so many devices failing I am 100% certain there is something else going on… Interference etc?
Anyways, you know you can always disable the nightly heal (which I did)…
Flo
I think we are having the same heal problems. Looks to me the nightly heal is bringing more problems as ui t solves. Maybe the people without problems don’t run the heal.
I hope the prize is a sledgehammer!
jk
I find that the device is next to useless now that I have no internet access at my new apartment yet. I cannot use my Vera Android apps at all and the device seems to freeze up sometimes even when trying to access its webpage, even though I have set up the logs to be saved to a USB stick.
I’m using UI5 with a Vera 2.
I just don’t know if it would be worth it to upgrade to a Vera 3 and hope for the best, or just quit while I’m ahead!
I do run the nightly heal (Check my sig for the devices) and have not run into trouble except the first time I (manually) ran it. One of my locks could not be configured. A manual heal the next day for the device fixed the problem. It looks like Vera has been running nightly heals since then without me realizing. I checked last nights report and it’s 100%. I generally check my home from work and would have noticed device issues.
Can’t say I’m unhappy about losing this contest. 8)
So when I got home, I could not add my Yale lock back to my network. And after much tinkering, I decided to restore factory settings and start again.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
Yes, this is a rant. Join in (especially if your story is worse).
I do the triple click and it seems to do something. 
