Controller shift then restore backup to make primary again?

Community Playground General Discussions
#1

I’m testing some other software based controllers that use a zwave stick. But don’t want to do this without always still having the Vera a working solution.

I’m wondering if the below would work, please comment;

My idea is to do a controller shift (after backing up the Vera) and have the stick receive the zwave network (this is basically the same as upgrading from eg Vera Lite to vera Plus). The VeraPlus will then be secondary and the stick will contain the zwave network of the Vera. I then switch off the Vera and ‘test’ with the new setup. When done testing, restore a backup on the Vera and switch off the test system.

Would this work? Most important , would restoring the backup (incl. the zwave network) put the Vera back in primary mode?

#2

A backup (including z-wave) will not make it primary.
There are ways to do it, I will NOT say how, Z-Wave specifies that there should only be one primary!

#3

I’d recommend that you make the stick a secondary controller, not using controller shift, but rather like adding a battery operated controller. This will copy the Z-Wave network information form Vera to the secondary controller stick, without affecting Vera or Vera’s role in the network.

The other software should not care that it is using a secondary controller. The only restriction is that you won’t be able to add new Z-Wave devices with the secondary controller. You can then simply power of Vera, if you want, to avoid conflicting programming logic while you play with other software.

When you are finished playing, turn off the secondary controller software, or don’t, and turn on Vera.

#4

Sounds Good! But how do I make vera send his full zwave network to the stick?

I can only see the controller shift option in vera.

Sent from my SM-T710 using Tapatalk

#5

Add generic Z-Wave device should see the Z-Stick as a controller and send the Z-Wave network as part of the inclusion process.

#6

I feel a bit stupid asking this but what do I do with the Z-stick? Plug into the Vera? Leave it connected to the HS PC? Disconnected full from any? But how do i then put it in inclusion mode? Can’t find that in the manual

#7

Here’s the Z-Stick 2 manual. It explains how to include a device, and the same applies to including teh Z-Stick into another controller.

Be sure to start with a reset Z-Stick, one that lacks any configuration or Z-Wave network.

You can also use PC based software to control and include the Z-Stick. zVirtualScenes is a pretty basic Windows application, but there are many others.