hi ,
I am going to install VERA in a big house. The basement has a mini “server room”.
Let’s say that VERA does cannot reach the switches of the 2nd floor, what’s my alternative to cover all the house ?
Thank you
z-wave is a mesh network. so the switches and devices on the first floor should act as repeaters to the second floor.
although i just started with vera and z-wave last month. i have my vera in the basement, in a hanging equipment rack and havn’t had a problem with it communicating with anything on the first floor or in the garage.
[quote=“drjoeward, post:2, topic:165502”]z-wave is a mesh network. so the switches and devices on the first floor should act as repeaters to the second floor.
although i just started with vera and z-wave last month. i have my vera in the basement, in a hanging equipment rack and havn’t had a problem with it communicating with anything on the first floor or in the garage.[/quote]
Not so fast…
How big a home are we talking about. Is it a long or is it compact. How many sqft.
How many devices do you wish to use.
But the comment about it being a mesh network is germane, right? The question was how many Vera does he need. Since many simple z-wave devices are cheap compared to a Vera, he could use a lamp dimmer or something that is cheap to extend his network to remote spots, rather than purchase additional Vera(s).
The issue is " Large Home’
With zwave you may not wan’t to deploy in a 6,000 sqft home with a 100 devices. Your network can get very slow.
There is a place for every type of system.
Generally the Lamp units can be used to “Extend” the range of the ZWave Network, but the “mesh” cannot be infinitely large. There is a limited number of “hops” permitted from the source (Vera) to a target node. I don’t recall that that hop-count limit is, but there is a limit (ZigBee has one also)
At some point, delays are introduced by addings lots of “hops” as well, along with some lessened reliability (since any powered node in the chain could fail).
At some point the answer depends upon the definition of “a big house” 
I think this is why @zmistro is asking the question…
As others have said the first thing you need to look at is the size of your house - how many square ft is it? Leviton states in their literature 7500 sq ft with no special equipment(Vera is considered special equipment) What’s the house’s layout how many stories are we looking at.
The design of the house should be a consideration in where the Vera is placed - remember you are building a mesh network and the best place to control it from is the center of the network.
How many devices are you planning on installing - as the saying goes the more devices the better the network. Any device that is not battery powered will act is a repeater in the network. The hop-count for technology is 4: controller → Receiver 1 → Receiver 2 → Receiver 3 → Receiver 4. However, you would not be able to actually see how the signal is being sent without special equipment.
Hope this helps - my suggestion is get out a pad of paper and pencil and start laying things out - if you have an extra set of blueprints I would have the handy and use them in the layout - welcome to the journey. 8)
It seems that no one has addressed his initial question.
Can there be more than one Vera in a home and would they work in harmony or would they both try to fight for control over various devices (I would think so.).
Is there no way to boost the signal if that becomes an issue?
two Vera’s should work in the same home. One as primary one as secondary controller. Size of home and number of nodes is important.
Hi ,
Thank you for all of your answers.
When I used the word “BIG” I did not mean anything like 10,000sqft… I only meant 4,500sqft
I was thinking about installing the Vera main controller in the basement. Each room in this house is going to have controlled units:
- Garage: Motion detector, garage doors, lights
- Kitchen: Motion detector, Recessed lights x 2 switches, shades
- Family room: Recessed lights x 2 switches, (Fire place?), shades
- 4 Bed rooms: Motion detector, Recessed lights, fans, shades
- Office, Dining room, small family room: Motion detector, Recessed lights, fan, shades
- Laundry room: Motion detector, Recessed lights
- Basement: Motion detector, Recessed lights x 4 switches, TV and all that goes with it
- Main HVAC (3 zones)
- All rooms have speakers (should be able to play from a Mp3 library) their own music
- 3 Bathrooms: Recessed lights, shades
- Outside of the house: Motion detector, Lights
I believe anything on the 2nd floow and basement can be hard wired.
Most of the things in 1st floor will be wireless.
So… Does this help ? 
Thank you all
HHaa… something I forgot to ask… Is there any touch screen (wall mounted) available for Vera ?
4500 sq ft should be ok.
You might have a problem with vera in the basement. Vera may be too far from the nearest node. A layout would be necessary first. You could always wire the usb stick on the first floor and Vera in a basement. Or you can Have Vera set up in Wifi client mode. It works pretty good.
when you start your install start with the nearest node (device) to Vera and fan out. If you start with the farthese the far node may not reach the Vera and not know of a route closer.
If this was my installation I would use an inclusionary remote like a GE/jasco. With this type of remote you get an immediate “success” on the display if you have good
signal. The Current GE/jasco do not support security encryption for stuff like door locks.However they should be available later this year.
Thank you for this last answer…
Is there a document that I could read, that explains all of that in advance ? (the vera, the usb stick, the fact that it’s a mesh network…) ?
Thank you
[quote=“zmistro, post:11, topic:165502”]4500 sq ft should be ok.
You might have a problem with vera in the basement. Vera may be too far from the nearest node. A layout would be necessary first. You could always wire the usb stick on the first floor and Vera in a basement. Or you can Have Vera set up in Wifi client mode. It works pretty good. …[/quote]
not to utterly confuse things but it’s NOT clear if all the hardware being sold will have wifi and the ability to remove the usb dongle and extend it someplace else.
http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=3127.0
MCV really needs to comment if such features are important to any one install.
that said- I have a 2 story house with a basement- vera sits in my basement wiring closet which happens to be under my stairs which form a ceneter “core” in the house. About 10 feet above my vera is a cluster of light switches on the first floor with a z-wave switch. Directly above that on my second floor is a thermostat. So in my case basment means nothing as it all radiates out from the “core”. (but to be honest when I look on the 'neighbor’s" reports looks like almost everything talks to many other devices.
[quote=“simon templar, post:12, topic:165502”]Thank you for this last answer…
Is there a document that I could read, that explains all of that in advance ? (the vera, the usb stick, the fact that it’s a mesh network…) ?
Thank you[/quote]
there’s a lot of info to be found at wiki.micasaverde.com - not sure there is anyone one specific document to aim you at but there’s a lot of good info there to get you started.
Besides the limit of 4 hops, isn’t there also a limit on the total number of devices/nodes in one Z-Wave network? That’s is 232 nodes max, but some manufacturers put a lower soft limit… Leviton is said to limit the max nodes to 128, but I’m not sure what that means exactly.