Last night I unboxed my VeraLite and, after about two hours, managed to get one of my four devices actually connected (it’s an Aeon Smart Switch, inserted between the wall and a power strip).
Just now when I got up in the morning, I launched the Vera app on my iPhone. The “thanks for your patience” spinner spun 52 times (I counted), and then went away, and my “Current status” panel indicated that my installation was incomplete (no device connected). About 10 seconds later, while I stared at it baffled, it changed its mind and said that my installation was OK. So I went to the devices list and tapped the switch. Another spinner, this one about six seconds, and finally the switch came on.
Is this normal, or is something wrong with my setup?
My purpose in getting this is primarily to replace all the wired switches in my house (which are poorly located) with wireless switches (which I can put in sensible locations). But it needs to respond like a switch: I push a button, the light comes on, right away. Is that not possible?
I actually control part of my vera HA from my Android Wear watch via SmartAbode or from Android phones/tablets mounted as wall controllers using AuthomationHD and the response is generally within 1 to 2 seconds.
Do realize that your phone connects to your Vera over your local network and then Vera connects to the zwave device via it’s 908MHz wireless mesh. If your devices route directly to Vera, the response will be faster than when they route to another device, which routes to yet another device. Which then routes to Vera. Routing depends on signal strength. Which depends on distance between device and controller (Vera) as well as obstacles between them such as walls, doors, furniture. There is a thread on an external antenna mod to improve reception. I noticed after I did that mod, almost all my devices now talk directly to Vera and response feels faster.
The Vera mobile app actually connects you to the Vera via the GetVera servers. So when you send a command from your phone it goes over the Internet to the Vera servers. Then from there to your Vera and then to the device. I’d suggest to look at some of the 3rd party apps available that are able to utilize your local network to connect your phone directly to Vera. Which should improve the response speed.
The “official” Vera app is horribly, horribly slow.
Use homewave
Use veramate
Use roomie remote (which is supposed to be more geared towards AV automation, but integrates very well with Vera, which is nice since UI7 removed the ability to send IR codes to a blaster)
Use. Anything. Except Vera’s official app and you’ll be happy. It may require some work/customization but at least your iphone will be usable as a remote for your automation
If you have access to an Android device, Authomation or Imperihome are the popular choices and I doubt you’ll be able to find a nicer looking UI than Imperihome. Imperihome is working on an IOS version…they started beta testing in April, so hopefully it will arrive soon.
There are, of course, others - most of which are created by the members of this forum - so some App Store searches or browsing in the plugins->remote control forum might steer you in a different direction.