I picked up a Veralite home starter kit that came with a Veralite G, light dimmer switch, and a SD camera. It was on sale and I decided to try it out hearing good things about the Vera and Zwave devices. Simplicity was a key message I heard and I liked the idea of creating an open platform where people can create their own apps/plugins. I got things running quickly, but not without error.
The bad and ugly
Still buggy. Out of the box, I created an account and it redirected me to the CP.MIOS site for activation. I did not know this site was no longer supported. Opened a ticket with Micaverde, but they did not respond for 3 days. I had to get live support for immediate assistance.
when I connected my dimmer switch, it worked immediately ! However, everything was extremely slow and laggy. I did a hard reset on the controller and things were smoother again. This was my first device, why is it slow ?
I have a NEST thermostat and a DSC alarm panel. Both did not work right away. A forum member posted a fix for the NEST and it worked. The DSC alarm panel is untested, but I could not figure out how to add “shortcuts” to the DSC panel. Devices appear, but I cannot control the panel from the UI7 interface.
Could not configure the included Camera. Would not auto detect and had to manually configure it. Couldn’t switch to wifi, and it still doesn’t work today. I will troubleshoot it some more, but I have a feeling that the camera is going back.
I tried some other plugins, weather, energy, foscam cameras, but none of them worked out of the box after installation.
The new UI7 interface I notice is a web app that suppose to be improved. Aesthetically, it looks fine. Functionally, it’s not intuitive. For example, I add new devices and it appears in the device tab. I have shortcuts and favorites. But the devices I added, depending on the type of devices appears as multiple devices or line items. My DSC alarm shows all the sensors separately for example. ALL i want is to control arming/disarming/stay etc. I cannot figure out how to create a shortcut on the dashboard to do this.
Error messages are not clear. There is a message at the top saying, “device not working”. Which device ? I think its my alarm panel, but all my sensors still shows up in the device list. Where did my arm/disarm option go? Reset Alarm Panel now it says. Restart the vera or my alarm panel? I’m not restarting my alarm panel !! HELL No.
DAY 5 and I’m still researching and trying to fix this controller.
K
PS. I know I’m a new user here, but the excessive CAPTCHA/Verification questions to post on this forum is very annoying. And what if English isn’t your first language.
I have to strongly agree with your last part of your post. It took me about 5 tries to get the Captcha right on my first post (and it wouldn’t change the image when I hit “Request another image”. And frankly the question about which country has the largest population was a bit tricky - I had three in mind, luckily I guessed right.
Furthermore, I notice that two of the questions I am about to have to answer in order to post this are a bit odd (and I am a native English speaker).
Write the 2nd, sixth and last letter of the word ‘enciclopedia’ (no separator) - what dictionary did you get “enciclopedia” from?
This is a question? (yes or no) - Think how hard this would be for someone from (say) the country that has the largest population? I bet at least 50% of native English speakers would get this one wrong.
First impressions mean an awful lot. I know by posting this I am not making a good one (if it even makes it through moderation), but that’s a 2-way street, and any vendor-supported forum that makes it so hard to “join the club” is not likely to get many members, except those that desperately need help (while that might be me eventually, at the moment I am evaluating products by seeing what problems other people are having).
PS - I’m on my second try at identifying the Captcha, let’s see how many tries it takes me. Oh, and apparently “This is a question?” is a question (based on the red box around my “No” answer). Hmm, maybe I better go back to grammar school. It’s certainly common usage to take a statement and simply append a question mark to it to make it a question, but I didn’t think that was grammatically correct.
I suppose simplicity is a relative term, so I won’t say that you were misinformed. But I will say that home automation in general as well as Vera can be pretty complex. Plan on spending MANY hours to get it working the way that you prefer. It gets easier as you go and learn more about it. Once it’s done(is it ever done?), most people find the results to have been worth the effort.
You had three in mind?! I’ve got to know what they were.
The captchas, though annoying, are essential for keeping the forum clean of spam. They go away completely after you have made numerous posts.
I suppose simplicity is a relative term, so I won’t say that you were misinformed. But I will say that home automation in general as well as Vera can be pretty complex. Plan on spending MANY hours to get it working the way that you prefer. It gets easier as you go and learn more about it. Once it’s done(is it ever done?), most people find the results to have been worth the effort.
You had three in mind?! I’ve got to know what they were.
The captchas, though annoying, are essential for keeping the forum clean of spam. They go away completely after you have made numerous posts.[/quote]
I have product development background. This product tries in all ways to be simple and it has to be if the customer base is the average American/Canadian(where I am from). If it wants tech savvy guys as customers, then so be it. My spouse and 90% of the population wouldn’t have been able to do what I had done so far. There are competing products out there that are much simpler to install and use. In this case, simplicity was intended, but there were too many “bugs” with this product that prevents a smooth install.
There is preventing spam and there is preventing real users from posting LOL. If the design of the forum is also in line with the VERA’s philosophy in user design, then they are in for a shock.
This is excessive. Firs time I’ve seen this on a forum.
Verification:
Type the letters shown in the picture
How many times 4 must be multiplied to equal 20? (numerical):
spell “KANGAROO” backwards(lower case):
What is the largest mammal in the world?(lower case):
After answering these questions, I feel that should win a prize LOL. I recall there was another question where it asked for the 2nd, 6th and last letter in a word. The font was sooo small. I got it wrong x3.
[quote=“Z-Waver, post:3, topic:183168”]You had three in mind?! I’ve got to know what they were.
The captchas, though annoying, are essential for keeping the forum clean of spam. They go away completely after you have made numerous posts.[/quote]
If I posted them here I’d be helping the robots that are apparently intent on spamming all of this forum’s users.
Where on earth are Mi Casa Verde getting these challenge questions? This one makes no sense:
Which metal is heavier, silver or gold?:
Er, do you mean denser? Are they both located in the exact same location so ‘G’ has the same value for both? Wait a moment while I weigh my identically-sized gold and silver rings (oh wait, I don’t have them).
Thankfully I’m fairly good at spelling things sdrawkcab.
BTW Z-Waver - when I say “you” and “your” I mean the company that produces Vera (you don’t appear to represent them).
Furthermore I don’t mean to downplay the annoyance of spam postings, I recognize this is a real problem, but the solution just feels very heavy-handed for a company that should be trying to attract customers, not discourage them.
Edited to add: only took me three tries with the captcha this time
Hrm, I just set up my Vera on cp.mios.com and it works fine. I can use my cell phone to turn lights on/off via 4G using AutomationHD. I hadn’t caught that it was the wrong address since I left my vera3 on UI5 and I knew it used a different authorization system than UI7.
I figure UI7 will need another couple of months to fully stabilize.
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