Is vera behind?

I’m currently using a Vera3. I know it’s old, but i’m a bit surprised that there are almost no apps compared to eg the Athom homey pro of my friend. He easily integrates Tuya,Tradfri,Xiaomi,Shelly,Ring,Doorbird, Niko,Devolo etc… I cannot find any app that supports any of these devices.
One can go to the Vera forum and can maybe connect to these devices with some programming…but surely not with an app.
I have the impression I’m on a bicycle while my friend with his Athom is driving a Porsche. What’s your opinion?

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You’re right. And, in fact, the wheels are about to come off your bicycle too.

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It’s good everywhere. Where we are not …
Do you collect Devices from different manufacturers?
I tried … These are suitcases without handles …
Porsche without wheels

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Well…it’s interesting when your controllers supports different devices. When there is a device you like, you can add it to your system…or in the case of Vera…not. It’s quiet frustrating to see that my Vera controller doesn’t support any of the above devices (or possibly with a programming) while the one of my friend easily (with a plugin) adds these to his system. I was thinking of buying a new Vera, but this makes me thinking :roll_eyes:.

Fibaro have just released their first Z-Wave 700 series hub the HC3 Lite, good price as well. But has some limitations compared to the full HC3 hub, which is still 500 series.

Always fancied a HC2 but was a big investment money wise.

The HC3 Lite is tempting to have a tinker with it.

Omnivorous, of course, is good. But! I like that my smart home thinks for me and tries to please me.
I don’t like taking out my phone and chasing light bulbs.
Or ask Google to turn on the light in the middle of the night.
I don’t really care what shortcuts are in applications.
I drop in there just to add a mind controller …
Vera, thanks in large part to Reactor, can please me.
And the “ball”?
And further…
Controllers that don’t know what a “direct association” is are rubbish.
And I will bear with the lack of support for another, albeit cheap light bulb, for the sake of my controller’s mind.
Pardon my crooked english ((
it’s not me, it’s google trying )))

In 2016 I searched for a device that was open, compatible with a lot of standards like z-wave, zigbee, bluetooth, wifi, cloud undependable … to automate some of the stuff in my new home and ended up with a VeraSecure. That seemed to be the best choice at the time, what a disappointment it was not been able to use half of the devices I owned because of the lack of software support. Supported devices were expensive and here in Europe not always easy to obtain. So I ended up with a very expensive shutter controller for 9 shutters, not always working because of several luup reloads and other reboots that disrupted the timers between the shutters, our dog had to sit in complete darkness for several days … she still hates me for that …
Because of a problem with my wife’s health we had to move again in 2020 to a house with only a ground floor and being not so happy about our Vera I searched the internet again and looked specifically for those things that I missed with our Vera. I found Homey and decided to buy one, wasn’t much to loose I felt.
I can still remember the first hours spending behind my desk and connecting more and more devices and Homey accepting all of them out of the box or by simply installing an app with 1 mouse click, I’m now controlling my Samsung TV, Marantz amplifier (without HEOS !), Tradfri hub with lamps and power plugs, Xaiomi sensors, Qubino and Fibaro z-wave modules, Google Home speakers, Sonos, Dahua wifi cams, smart electricity meter (yes, the one from the electricity company, not my own), my solar panels, smoke detectors, Hue lamps … all are connected and not one device took me longer then 2 minutes to connect.
And to give you an example, it took me less then 5 minutes to automate my z-wave controlled heaters to set to a higher setpoint when my solar panels are producing more energy than my house was currently consuming at that moment. Didn’t even had to use scripting to accomplish that. And I don’t have to shout at my Google in the middle of the night when I need to go to the bathroom, when I stand up 1 of the lights installed in my bedroom turns on at 1%, same happens to the lights in my hallway and bathroom. And everything automatically turns off again when I lay down in my bed. All my motion and door/window sensors are connected to an app giving me the possibility to use them also as alarm sensors, the app also has several alarm conditions and all are useable to turn other devices on or off or to push messages to my cell phone.
My Verasecure is since then tucked away in my closet and has never seen the light of day again, I’ve worked with both systems and my choice is made, there are a lot of promises that Vera makes but Homey delivers. Have a look at the app store, I even found support for my Christmas lights!
So please do not judge a product before you’ve actually worked with it, I’m of course assuming that you never owned/used one but reading your comments I’m pretty sure that you haven’t.
And yes, it’s not perfect, it lacks an ethernet port so it’s only connected via wifi but I set up my router to link a static IP to the MAC address and I’m not experiencing any network problems with the device. For me the advantages are huge comparing to Vera. Also the dashboard isn’t great but yo can install a mqtt client and mqtt hub and combined with something like Nod-Red you can do great things and lightning fast, even with a mqtt broker on a pi.

And I know that what is perfect for some person might be not satisfying for someone else, all depends on your expectations, knowledge, preferences and goals. If Vera works for you great! It didn’t do it for me so now we both are happy :wink:

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