How can things like motors and other gadgets be controlled with Vera? Controlling lighting and door locks is cool and all but I’d like to do a little more. Like Doc Brown’s house in back to the future. I’m sure others out there must be thinking the same thing. How have people gone about it?
Bi-Directional Standard motors are best controller with the ABMHZ or AC1-ZW for AC Motors and DBMZ or DC1-ZW for DC motors. These offer load sensing which allows for confirmation of movement and position and being able to move the motor to a percentage of its travel.
There are also Intelligent motors with a lot of other features that can accept a Z-Wave interface. It all depends on your budget and application.
If your looking for general rely-based control of “stuff” (motors, dry contact things, etc) have a look at the IORelay/Relay plugin in the programming section.
I put it together to specifically handle control of multiple devices over relay, along with providing inputs. Multiple board combos (1…8 relays, 8 inputs, and a variety of IO interfaces) make their stuff fairly handy… without ZWave 
I’m wiring my first to the garage door, as an adaptation of the advanced garage door control from CocoonTech’s site (relay control, 10x turn Pot input for door location measurement, reed switches for end confirmations etc)
Downside: output controls are instant, Input controls are sampled every 2-3 seconds so input events can be missed…
Thanks, @Guessed!
The shade motor controllers wouldn’t work well for a garage door application, so for things like this and other fun motor things your contribution is appreciated! (by me at least )
Yeah, I got tired of my HSM-100 being flakey, as the farthest away device in my ZWave net, so I also have temp and light sensors hanging off my relay board… I just need to add a way to calibrate them against real temperature values and I’ll be all set to throw out the HSM (for what I was using it for)
What I like about the IORelay.com stuff is the flexibility of their modules. I have 5A, 2x Relay boards but you can get them in 5, 10, 20 and 30A units with 1, 2, 4 and 8 relays (more also, but I can only drive up to 8 right now)… The level of options on their site can be a little daunting when you start.
When I’m complete, the garage config will have 1 relay to open/close the door, one temp sensor, one light sensor, 2 reed switches for endpoint detection and a 10 turn pot for door position detect. All over a wifi connection, and recycling the battery charge power supply from Vera2… Since it’s all low wattage gear.
I just have to work out how to hook that pot to the chain drive as I don’t have any bike spare parts…
Anyhow, more to give ideas for S-F’s request on what to do with general input/output over and above Lights and TStats…