I’m about to set up a Vera home automation system and I need a remote control to do the following:
I want the remote to allow me to activate scenario from Vera but I also want it to act as any universal remote and control my A/V system.
What I mean is, that when I watch TV and I want to switch the channel or adjust volume the remote will act as any universal remote but, when I rum a “movie” scenario it will run a scenario from Vera.
I’m looking for a physical remote control and NOT my phone.
There is a LOT of information out there but nothing concrete. I saw the Harmony hub (with the extender) but not sure if it will work as I described?
There are a several different approaches you can take for this. There are two that I am fairly familiar with and have tried.
First is using a Keene IR Anywhere module and the corresponding KiraRT plugin for Vera.
http://www.keene.co.uk/infra-red/ir-distribution-extenders/ir-over-ip/keene-ir-anywhere-single-worldwide.html
http://apps.mios.com/plugin.php?id=8176
Using this approach allows you to use ANY regular IR remote control. The Keene IR Anywhere picks up the commands being sent out by the remote and then you use the plugin to program what you want the Vera to do in various scenarios. There is a lot of information in the forums about this. Just do searches for “Keene” and “Kira”. The only drawbacks to this approach is that you must maintain line of sight between the remote and the Keene just the same way you do for any IR controlled device. There is also a fair amount of upfront configuration, but it is pretty solid after you are done.
I used this approach with a regular Sony universal remote for awhile and it worked great for me. The drawbacks were that to make this work, I would put the remote into “CD mode” as if it was trying to control a CD player. Then I had certain buttons assigned to perform scenes in Vera. So for example, if I hit the play button, then my overhead lights would turn on and off. To me this was no big deal because I could remember exactly how I had it set up. However it was hard to teach my wife how it all worked and she could never remember which button did what…so she never used it.
I later upgraded to a Harmony Ultimate Home remote, but still using the Keene and Kira plugin. The benefits of using the Harmony over the Sony were 1- the line of sight issue went away because the Harmony talks Bluetooth from the remote to the included hub and the hub is an IR blaster. 2- I could program the touchscreen on the Harmony to say “Living Room Lights” which made it a lot more useful for my wife. There is also a Harmony plugin available (MiOS Apps) which allows your Vera to control you Harmony (not that the Harmony can control Vera, more on this in a minute). So it can be useful if you have a scene in your Vera where you want the TV to be turned on or off.
Later I became aware of the “Amazon Echo to Vera Bridge” (http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,31920.0.html) which created a Phillips Hue emulator that you can use to have your Harmony control your Vera. I spent a little while working on this as a replacement to using the Keene and Kira plugin. It took me a little while to get it working, but once it was running it worked well. It has since stopped working and I have not had the time to troubleshoot the issue. I am leaning towards going back to the way I used to have it with the Keene because it worked very well.
The other option out there that seems really good, but I have not personally tried yet is using the Harmony Home Hub Extender. This allows the Harmony to control Vera more directly than any of the other options. Vera is listed on Logitech’s website as a compatible device (although it only lists the Vera Edge). This means there will likely be a lot less “tinkering” to get it to work. There has been some discussion about it here (http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,34206.0.html). If you read this thread from start to finish you will see that I ask if anyone uses the extender, then someone tells me about the Hue Emulator, then helps troubleshoot issues with the Emulator, then finally on post #27, someone reports some feedback about how the extender works. I am pretty certain this is ultimately the route I will take.
I’m using multiple extender, total of 5. They work very well. I’m using them in conjunction with 2 Vera Edges and 1 Vera 3 at 3 different home locations.
There are a few issues I have had so far.
[ol][li]First, the device status updating on either the Harmony or Vera is slow to be replicated back to the other, so when you turn on a light with Harmony, it takes a while before Vera knows it and vice versa. I have played with the polling intervals on the Vera side, but haven’t gotten great results.
Second, when the Harmony initially brings the devices in, they do not include the names defined in Vera, they use generic names like Light 1, Plug 1 Thermostat 1 etc. It takes a while to rename everything, but this is a one time effort for existing devices, as you add new, it should be one for one.[/li]
[li][/li][/ol]
The extender looks like a scene controller to Vera. Logitech was running a sale, so I picked these up for around $70. I bought one for each of my harmony hubs as you will not be able to access an extender on a different hub from another remote. It would have been nicer if multiple hubs could connect to one extender, but that’s not the way they work.
Let me know if you want me to look for something specific.