On the older interface (iu5) I had to carry the veralite unit around to all my light switches to exclude or include them.
Recently I’ve updated to the new versions ui7 and it seems to allow me to keep the vera at the equipment rack and go around to the switches with my laptop and include them without bringing the devices together. Work well.
My question is regarding excluding though, do I still need to bring the vera around the house with me?
Specifically, this is at another location and they are replacing a vera that had been giving them problems. I need to exclude all the switches in the house before I can include them, but I see no way to remotely exclude without manually walking around with the vera. Is this true?
It depends on the device and the distance and other environmental factors. Try long distance excludes. If they don’t work, then of course you’ll have to move Vera or the device closer.
But, do you need to exclude devices at all? What sort of problems are you experiencing with the old Vera? Is it completely non-functional?
If it were me and the Vera had completely died, I would restore a backup to the new Vera. If the old Vera is still operational, but is being problematic due to failing hardware or unknown logic issues, I’d copy the Z-Wave network to the new controller by adding the new controller as a secondary, or do a controller shift. Either of these will copy all the devices to the new Vera and you won’t have to exclude/include. Note that copying the network does not copy names, plugins, logic or anything else. It only copies Z-Wave homeID and nodeIDs.
To be honest, what happened was the previous installer added about 30 switches throughout the customer house, but didn’t name or identify anything. Then I was basically brought in to clean the mess up. It was much easier for me to bring a new vera to site with my, already updated (the home is a new build with no internet access), and just pair everything from scratch.
I haven’t looked at the old vera, but he said he had problems. I’m probably just going to factory reset it and update it and keep it as a spare.
As for the original exclude question, I noticed after I posted that if it fails to add through the wizard it automatically goes into exclude mode. I used that for most of the switches but it’s extremely time consuming. I much prefer my homeseer system!
All but 3 switches in the house (out of maybe 25) I was able to exclude and re-include to the new vera. Not sure what’s going on with the other 3. Those 3 are located in the same closet beside about 7 other switches that worked…not sure why excluding wasn’t working there.
Thanks again for the follow up!
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