Do we have any other good choices if Vera3 can’t fix problems.?
They don’t seem to care if things don’t get fixed, seems like a very unstable product.
I don’t think they don’t care. I think there is a lot to do though…
It doesn’t take long to find out about competitors eg. Homeseer or Fibaro Home Centre 2. Each controller has it drawbacks I guess. Advantages of the vera are the easy scripting language and the helpful forum…
What is so badly broken that you need something else?
It may seem like they do not care, but behind the scenes, they are working pretty hard. I can not say I agree with them on their priorities for what gets fixed first, but they are trying to get what is broken fixed. If you are looking for a product that competes with Vera’s price point and features, you will be sadly disappointed. Most products cost much more and they also have their issues. Please let us know what you think is broken and that MCV is not caring to fix.
- Garrett
OK Thanks, I will keep plugging away.
Fibaro home Center 2 may be a great alternative. I have a Vera 2 and i am testing HC2. Seems to be based on Vera. Much better UI. Really nice. They release their API soon. Very promising. For non tekkies a real good alternative today. What they promise about the API sounds great! So maybe also a great alternative for integrators. The hardware is really fast and the aluminium case looks great… Have a look AT their website…
Do we have to pay any monthly subscription for HC2?
Thanks
No. Just buy and have fun. Really easy configuration, great Ui. Easy to manage scenes. Big promises about the soon coming API. Many languages incl. PHP. Inclusion of any trigger. Even a website like the NYT. Very promising… Just what we all dream of…
All personal interactions I have had with MCV have been very pleasant. Vera isn’t perfect, but it has continually gotten better since I bought mine. I expect the MCV staff are working very hard behind the scenes.
Is fibaro only EU? What is the cost. I have been using my vera’s for a few years and yes, it has it’s issues. But nothing that has not been fixed or worked around. The community is great, the access to the huge amount of apiece is great and the cost can not be beat!
- Garrett
Hi,
One of the other user has created an alternative UI which is more flexible and uses Vera 2 or Vera3 as the back end.
It currently still in development but does provide a lot of functionality that is not found in the core Vera UI(s). He is working on picking up some of the JSON functionality and if history is a measure, he should get that done rather quickly.
Some of the bonus are sorting, multple units selectable or aggregrated. Faster rendering.
See http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,8920.0.html
I’m a long time user of Vera. I’m not very happy with the UI and support. The most annoying is the lack of support for “Merten 5071xx Connect Radio Push Button 2gang”.
I have been in contact with Fibaro to find out if their HC2 is based upon MIOS. Their reply :“NO. IT IS 100% OUR PRODUCTION. IT IS MUCH BETTER SYSTEM THAN MIOS.”
Well, “much better” is still to be proven, but it is good news that it is something different.
Regarding Veras missing support for “Merten 5071xx Connect Radio Push Button 2gang” and if HC2 support that 2 gang Merten device they reply: “NOT YET, NEXT WEEK WE WILL BUY THIS MERTEN PRODUCTS AND WILL SUPPORT THOSE , NO PROBLEM, YOU WILL HAVE TO JUST UPDATE THE GATEWAY”
If I start to hear positive things about HC2 I won’t hesitate to spend another €549.
Eh. For the most part Vera is stable. Now I’m using UI 4 because UI5 is plain obnoxious and broken. I imagine that they spent a good deal of time, and are continuing to, developing UI5. Stupid move. Not only does it plain suck it is wasted man hours. Why didn’t they fix all the BS in the existing UI? Gimme F’ing conditional logic and keep the convoluted new UI on the back burner. So I have to become a programmer and learn about lua in order to make Vera do anything aside from turn my lights on and off? WTF is that? I can just get of off my posterior and turn them on and off myself. No fancy $80 light switches or $250 controllers needed. I got this thing to make my life more convenient not more complicated. Since I tried UI5 I have been looking from the homeseer website to my wallet and back again every day. At this rate it looks like it’s only a matter of time before Vera gets passed on to someone else.
My advice, if you have a PC which is always on or are willing to spend the money to get one then Vera is not the tool for you.
Wish I had thought this through a little more clearly before I bought Vera. I have a file server which is always on and it perfectly capable of hosting homeseer.
Fibaro looks awesome. If I could preorder the US version, I’d do it today.
[quote=“S-F, post:12, topic:170653”]My advice, if you have a PC which is always on or are willing to spend the money to get one then Vera is not the tool for you.
Wish I had thought this through a little more clearly before I bought Vera. I have a file server which is always on and it perfectly capable of hosting homeseer.[/quote]
Maybe you can run Homeseer on a NAS that’s always on. Just be careful not to get fooled by the greener looking grass… My Zwave supplier is going nuts from issues with HS and certain appliances, and is now planning to switch back to Vera when UI5 stabilizes.
The Fibaro unit looks nice too, but doesn’t everything at first glance?
A pretty website doesn’t make a great product. You can see that they are building on the success of the VERA line. I think it’s great to see competition out there. One of the things that bothers me about the Z-wave technology is the high prices of components. They are priced high because this is a fairly vertical market. They charge high prices because they know they can get it.
The still missing Support for the MERTEN devices especially the 2-gang controllers is the mostly annoying thing at Vera for me.
I have to use Vera as secondary controller and configure my complete network with the MERTEN software and USB-dongle. After every network change I have to reconfigure everything in Vera!
If Fibaro really manages to include compatibility to Merten the HC2 is not beatable!
I have it in test since two weeks. It is great, quick and feels very professional compared to vera.
There were three updates in this time. All without problems. Compare that to vera!!! A disaster!
They seem to be quick. Answer quickly to requests and have great plans.
Finally the perfect system with absolutely no drawbacks! I understand they are working on world peace as well! ;D
Competition is good, time will tell
[tt]http://www.ihomeautomate.eu/2012/01/05/interview-with-fibaro-past-present-and-future/[/tt]
I have been in contact with Fibaro to find out if their HC2 is based upon MIOS. Their reply :"NO. IT IS 100% OUR PRODUCTION. IT IS MUCH BETTER SYSTEM THAN MIOS." Well, "much better" is still to be proven, but it is good news that it is something different.
Well, I wouldn’t be sure:
[tt]http://dom.fibaro.com/[/tt] redirects to [tt]https://dom.fibaro.com/[u][b]cmh[/b][/u]/index.php[/tt] …
Judge for yourself:
Good catch, I had a feeling it was based on mios for some time.
- Garrett
Especially:
Note the references to micasaverde? Shame they have something to hide as I really like their modules (have two and a lot more coming)