Goodbye MCV; Hello Homeseer

Community Playground General Discussions
#41

@z-waver, to be clear, I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful at all. Honestly, based on all the vera bashing that goes on in this forum (way more than competitive banter), I was amazed to hear that they owned the forum. Honestly, that they let this kind of discussion happen impresses me - kudos for allowing open discussions.

That aside… I do like reading about other’s perspectives with competing products. But if this is their forum… it should definitely be kept to a minimum. My problem is that I have yet to find another forum where the members are (without sounding pandering) as smart, or have a good overall purvue on the entire HA market.

If you know of another useful forum for HA discussions across all products, please do share.

#42

What would the min PC requiremets to run their HS3 software? Do you think it would run one of those Intel PC sticks?

Jim

#43

So would this be what I would need?

$249 - HS3 Software
$40 - Z-wave Stick
$39 - Plug-in for EnvisaLink DSC
?? - Plug-in for my Honeywell thermostat. I didn’t see a plug-in for Honeywell
$39 - Plug-in for weather

Would I need Plug-ins for my IP cameras?

Thanks
Jim

#44

I said goodbye to Homeseer 4 years ago due to the same reasons that Aaron already mentioned V2 was buggy and mobile apps really crappy and expensive.

The VeraLite I bought back then has served me well (for a 120euro device) even if the memory restriction did cause me some trouble and limited me from expanding my system. I now have a VeraPlus running nicely with great possibility to expand and add things that the VeraLite could not handle. So far I do not regret the 153euro investment the VeraPlus was.

Anyhow I’m sure Homeseer now is better and I think I read somewhere that a solution to use ImperiHome is under development for Homeseer so I have not ruled out the possibility to go back to Homeseer sometime in the distant future.

#45

You guys should give HomeSeer another try. I’ve only been trying it for a week, but it’s been a week of ZERO issues. I haven’t come across a single bug (yet), and It’s absolutely lovely to look at my dashboard every morning and seeing EVERY SINGLE DEVICE functioning properly. With Vera, it’s a different surprise every day. Vera was good 4 years ago, and it was even better 3 years ago. Now, it’s a different story.

@jbfoster, yeah maybe those and ImperiHome plugin too? Its minimum requirements are pretty low, so it should run on anything that supports Windows 8/10. But, if I were you, for now, I’d just buy a $40 or $45 ZWave stick to see if I even like HomeSeer.

#46

I’m new to this - just setup my VeraPlus a week or two ago and I’m currently in the process of getting things setup. So far I only have a few light switches/MyQ gateway/Ecobee3 thermostat/and a door sensor, but everything has worked flawlessly so far (although I wish the door sensor responded quicker)… I’m not sure where all of this hate is coming from

If I went with HomeSeer, I’d need to buy the software, the z-wave stick, MyQ plugin ($35.99) and the Ecobee plugin ($39.95), just for my limited setup: how is that an improvement?

#47

I’m new to this - just setup my VeraPlus a week or two ago and I’m currently in the process of getting things setup. So far I only have a few light switches/MyQ gateway/Ecobee3 thermostat/and a door sensor, but everything has worked flawlessly so far (although I wish the door sensor responded quicker)… I’m not sure where all of this hate is coming from

If I went with HomeSeer, I’d need to buy the software, the z-wave stick, MyQ plugin ($35.99) and the Ecobee plugin ($39.95), just for my limited setup: how is that an improvement?[/quote]

So basically, other than a few light switches and a door sensor (which you’re already not too happy with), you don’t have any other ZWave devices. Just wait till you add some more. With a setup like yours I’m sure Vera will be fine, of course with the occasional issues that you’re already having. Just don’t add too many zwave devices (which is what Vera was built for) and you’ll be fine (kinda) :slight_smile:

#48

I know this might sound like crazy talk but I’ll bet you could post these question in the HS forums and get answers there almost as good as the answers you’d find here in the Vera forums.

#49

I am using a Vera Plus and recently migrated from UI5-VL.

About 50 zwave devices including thermostats, switches, dimmers, controllers, flood sensors, locks, etc .
Using many plugins including: DSC, Onkyo, Squeezebox, Ted5K, Weather, PowerArithmetic, Imperihome, AltUI, timers, BlueIris, multi-string, multi-switches, combo switches and more. I also have significant amount of automation logic in PLEG that is always being used. I control everything through Imperihome on a few tablets always connected and refreshing as well as mobile devices.

I have to say, other than some difficulty getting everything stabilized during the migration and some annoying UI glitches, my VeraPlus has been quite stable. No reboots, and minimal # of unplanned LUUP reloads. Memory usage not exceeded 20%. The Zwave range is better than the VL and I have no need to do antenna mods as I had before.

I have no idea what makes my implementation different than yours, but its hard to claim its based on the number of devices, plugins, or load . My experience with it has been mostly positive and I am happy I finally moved over…

#50

I have evaluated HS3 extensively a few months ago considering switching and although it has some benefits, at the end I decided against it. I understand that my setup/needs may be different but here are my thoughts:

  1. Not providing an option to run HS3 as a windows service (considering the money you pay for it) is a minus. Yes, I am aware about all the hacks/setup that can be done as a workaround, but it is 2016 and it should be an option.

  2. I do a lot of Sonos announcements triggered by scheduled events and setting it up in Sonos plugin in Vera is much easier then in HS3 plugin which is not free like Vera’s by the way.

  3. The Ademco Vista alarm plugin for Vera allows for virtual zones to be added to report zones status regardless of Alarm status (since Vista does not report zone status when alarm is armed this is a must for me). It can also report status of wireless alarm sensors without having those sensors even enrolled in your alarm system - which gives you a cheap alternative of adding a lot of cheap and reliable sensors and alarm does the pass-through to Vera via the plugin. Home Seer plugin does not do either of these functions even though it is not free like Vera’s.

  4. The HSTouch designer is a joke. I have spent days building beautiful layouts which I thought would work great on my android control tablets I have, what a waste of time. Buggy, laggy, scalability does not work well you have to do pixel-level adjustments and a lot of the time it just crashes. This was probably my biggest pet-peeve since they charge so much money for this tool and it is so bad and non-intuitive. I have Imperihome running with Vera and it is rock solid and beautiful. For the amount of money HS charges for HS Touch designer, they should’ve released an app that just works and can be skinned like Imperihome.

One thing where Homeseer rocks is the rules engine. That’s where I give it all the credit it deserves - it is beautiful and powerful - you can create a ton of logic and it is pretty straight forward and it beats Vera and Vera with PLEG hands down. That is one part I wish Vera would improve on because rules and scenes are the core of automation.

I did an antenna mod to my Vera, I moved it to a more central location, and I bought a few z-wave repeaters. My Vera has been rock solid for months now with no issues whatsoever. I don’t do updates unless I review the issues people report and evaluate if it may impact me or if I want an update. I respect those who moved to HS and like it… but if you are thinking about it, I recommend you definitely evaluate it first to make sure it is not one of those “grass it always greener on the other side” situations. HS is not cheap, and I am not saying it should be, but the investment may not be worth it.

PS. Oh yea, after registration on their forum I got an email “Unfortunately your registration at HomeSeer Message Board did not meet our membership requirements. Therefore your registration was deleted.” with absolutely no explanation why. I was evaluating the trial software and wanted to ask a few questions… but I guess you have to buy the software first before they waste their time on you.

#51

Wow, that is bad service.

#52

@ykamenet ,thanks, very helpful.

#53

Wow, that is bad service.[/quote]

I know this is not true, I been on their message board for well over a year now when I first did my trial. They also don’t ask you for any info to prove you own homeseer to join the board same as this forum. Something else happened there.

I also challenge anyone to call or email both VERA and Homeseer and see who gets back to you first or answers on the first try.

#54

Wow, that is bad service.[/quote]

I know this is not true, I been on their message board for well over a year now when I first did my trial. They also don’t ask you for any info to prove you own homeseer to join the board same as this forum. Something else happened there.

I also challenge anyone to call or email both VERA and Homeseer and see who gets back to you first or answers on the first try.[/quote]

I received that message too after I registered, but I replied to that email, letting them know that I’m not a spammer and that I just wanted to evaluate HomeSeer, so they replied right away, apologizing, and letting me know that they get about 500 to 700 spammers trying to register every day, so something triggered moderation of my registration. After that they registered my account, and I was good to go.

Also, I don’t think you need HSTouch now that ImperiHome works quite well with it.

#55

[quote=“jumper4000, post:54, topic:191408”][quote=“integlikewhoa, post:53, topic:191408”]I know this is not true, I been on their message board for well over a year now when I first did my trial. They also don’t ask you for any info to prove you own homeseer to join the board same as this forum. Something else happened there.

I also challenge anyone to call or email both VERA and Homeseer and see who gets back to you first or answers on the first try.[/quote]

I received that message too after I registered, but I replied to that email, letting them know that I’m not a spammer and that I just wanted to evaluate HomeSeer, so they replied right away, apologizing, and letting me know that they get about 500 to 700 spammers trying to register every day, so something triggered moderation of my registration. After that they registered my account, and I was good to go.

Also, I don’t think you need HSTouch now that ImperiHome works quite well with it.[/quote]

@integlikewhoa - which part is not true? The fact that I received an email or the fact that they rejected my account because I was honest that I currently do not own Homeseer in my registration response? I can forward you the email to prove the first one if you do not believe me, plus as jumper4000 indicated he received the same thing and I know other people reported the same. On the second point, when I registered the second time and indicated that I DO own the homeseer (I lied basically since I was evaluating it but I did not own it), I was actually not rejected… so you make conclusions. I am not saying that they do not let people at all without you buying HS first, but it is a bad practice to reject registration without explaining anything for no reason. I have never been registered before and I have no idea what else could’ve caused this besides me being honest that I don’t currently own HS in my response.

To answer your challenge - I have never contacted HS customer service since I did not need direct support, but I have contacted Vera support several times and I have never had issues getting support from Vera staff. I exchanged a few emails with Marc Shenker as well and responses were very fast. I am assuming they may get overwhelmed sometimes when the volume of tickets are high (any company would) but I personally had only good experience so far.

@jumper4000 - I heard the same from other people that as long as you reply to the email stating that you are not a “bad guy” they will let you in. But why? They have captcha as part of their registration to prevent robots, they make you validate your email before activating, they also state right on the registration page:

“NOTE TO SPAMMERS - Don’t even bother! All posts to this forum are MODERATED, so your post will never be seen. Moderated posts will be deleted and user accounts will be permanently banned. Seriously, you are wasting your time here. Find another forum to mess with.”

So posts are moderated… why are accounts rejected then before one can even post anything at all? Guilty until proven innocent? And if I am a spammer with bad intentions, what prevents me from sending them an email that I want to evaluate HS but start spamming anyway after they approve my registration? Again, just seems like unnecessary practice that leaves bad taste for all newcomers and potential customers.

Anyways, this was not the reason I decided not to switch of course, I just shared it as a personal experience with their forums, so YMMV. I listed the reasons in my original post and if those will change, I will certainly look at it again in the future. As I mentioned, HS rules engine is fantastic and flexible so I will re-evaluate it when new release comes out. I knew Imperihome plugin has been in development, my understanding that it is still lacking and not complete… but I could be wrong. If it is 100% functional as on Vera that’s fantastic. Have fun whatever works for you, but again - evaluate first, don’t assume it will meet all your needs before spending all that money.

#56

I believe you got an email and didn’t get added to the forum at first, but what i don’t believe is that you were rejected from the forum do to not owning a homeseer. Like i said i was on that forum for along time before owning anything from homeseer.

And if captcha anwsers for thier website was Vera then that also could have been a problem, but sounds like u joined the forums as well as me and jumper all before or without owning homeseer.

#57

Maybe their policy has changed recently?

I also just filled out their membership request page, honestly, since I don’t own Homeseer yet, only doig research. I got the “Action Required” email and clicked thru to verify myself. A few hours later I got:

Dear xxxxxxxxx,

Unfortunately your registration at HomeSeer Message Board did not meet our membership requirements. Therefore your registration was deleted.

Sorry,
HomeSeer Message Board

Not a nice way to treat prospective customers who were considering purchasing their product.

#58

I have HomeSeer forum login, as if they ever get serious about an EnOcean plug-in, I will kick the tires and help troubleshoot that plug-in. I have posted a few times, but no real traction on the plug-in.

But I have bought nothing to date from HomeSeer, and that wasn’t a pre-requisite to get a forum login. I suspect a technical issue has arisen they need to fix…

#59

@jhirschhorn, just reply to that email and they’ll set you up with an account pretty fast. Same thing happened to me, but they replied back within minutes and I was good to go.

@ykamenet, yeah ImperiHome on HS is just about as usable as it is on Vera, it’s under very rapid development, and its developer is super responsive to any issues. I don’t have any devices that it doesn’t work with.

#60

I’m new to this - just setup my VeraPlus a week or two ago and I’m currently in the process of getting things setup. So far I only have a few light switches/MyQ gateway/Ecobee3 thermostat/and a door sensor, but everything has worked flawlessly so far (although I wish the door sensor responded quicker)… I’m not sure where all of this hate is coming from

If I went with HomeSeer, I’d need to buy the software, the z-wave stick, MyQ plugin ($35.99) and the Ecobee plugin ($39.95), just for my limited setup: how is that an improvement?[/quote]

Live with it for a while. Keep creating more scenes, install more plugins, and when something inevitably stops working or continues to work randomly, contact Vera’s helpful (but god aweful slow) support. Hopefully your experience will only get better. A lot of us are jaded after having the platform for years. Seeing what UI5 once was, seeing how badly broken UI7 is still. A lot of us just want to move on if something better exists.

Personally, I am strongly considering coming back to Vera after a few months leave to SmartThings, but after sitting on this forum the last few hours, I am starting to lean towards buying HomeSeer and putting up with their ugly interface. If their ugly interface is the only thing keeping me from switching to HomeSeer, maybe I am being overly petty.

I am just so drained. I need something that is well supported and just works.