You bought Vera box and several Z-wave devices along with 3-1 sensor.
What you can NOT do today from the interrface is
“Switch on the lights when there is motion AND it’s dark”
If you want to add this functionality in Vera click “YES” else “No”
But you can by adjusting the intensity level of the 3 in 1 sensor. I have set this level very high so it won’t react to motion unless it’s dark. You can find all the settings in the manual of the 3 in 1 sensor. http://www.expresscontrols.com/pdf/EZMotionOwnerManual.pdf
I believe that this feature (and others like it) is basic functionality that is required to make this product a viable commodity in the market. After setting it up out of the box, I quickly wanted to delve into the advanced features like “AND”… only to realize that I have to learn a script language that I apparently need to make this box truly functional. Face it, Vera is a toy without this enhanced functionality.
Let me start out by saying I’m not a HA geek. I’m closer to Joe 6-pack who bought Vera for its ease of use features. I’m still on firmware .616 because all the Z-wave devices I currently have work VERY reliably and I’ve learned that with technology if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Now I can cut and paste with the best of them out there, but honestly, what am I cutting and pasting into and what do I do then? I have a day job and do not have the time or desire to learn LUA, LUUP (and)(or) LOOP DE LOOP. I would like to have the ability to specify scenarios like turn the lights on when motion is detected and it’s night time. If I’m not MCV’s target audience, then so be it, but what sold me was the promise of a cost-effective, easy to use, reliable and environmentally friendly way of implementing home automation. I understand the benefits of a scripting language, just don’t force all your customers to have to use it. Damn, I’m out of beer now…
This is true, but it means you can only use the sensor for this purpose. If we can implement this new feature in the UI, I could have the sensor turn on the lights when it’s dark, and in a separate scene, have it turn on the pump to my garden fountain when it’s light.
In addition, we need this feature for out door locks, which don’t have the HSM100’s light settings.
One more point: my mom, or my brothers for that matter, could never figure out what a parameter is, let alone how to set it. Like yovinman, they have day jobs and expect things to “just work”. It needs to be in the UI.
at least thirteen of you are wrong!
you dont need this!
MCV says that only 5 users are interested.
please correct your votes.
[quote=“michaelk, post:6, topic:165594”]at least thirteen of you are wrong!
you dont need this!
MCV says that only 5 users are interested.
please correct your votes.[/quote]
Okay you got me laughing.
I would like to add that it’s not just motion I want a light to come on when I enter a lock code but only when it’s dark. I also want it to turn off all the lights and A/C after 11am if the door is locked.
[quote=“reiserx, post:7, topic:165594”][quote=“michaelk, post:6, topic:165594”]at least thirteen of you are wrong!
you dont need this!
MCV says that only 5 users are interested.
please correct your votes.[/quote]
Okay you got me laughing.
I would like to add that it’s not just motion I want a light to come on when I enter a lock code but only when it’s dark. I also want it to turn off all the lights and A/C after 11am if the door is locked.[/quote]
if we get one AND as an option we will be able to use everywhere.
I just moved back to Vera from Homeseer (unistalled the trial version). Had to redo everything again but while doing it it just came to me
- They are already doing an OR with in the scene, all they have to do is switch to AND. We do not need OR in any scene as we can create another scene which logically be ORed.
Allow me to give an example
Scene 1 : After Sunset AND luminance <=30% AND Motion Command = lights on for 30 minutes
Scene 2: After Sunrise AND motion AND luminance <=40% Command: lights on for 6 minutes
Scene 1 and Scene 2 are ORed but with in a scene all conditions should be met as in need an AND while currently they are OR.
again, right now with in a scene everything is ORed needs to be switched to AND -
Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong and/or misunderstood.
regards
Keeper
PS: it’s really tough to type on this small window with dancing scroll - forgive my spelling, if any 
[quote=“michaelk, post:6, topic:165594”]at least thirteen of you are wrong!
you dont need this!
MCV says that only 5 users are interested.
please correct your votes.[/quote]
Welcome back M - we all missed you (particularly your sense of humour - spot on)
[quote=“Keeper, post:8, topic:165594”]I just moved back to Vera from Homeseer (unistalled the trial version). Had to redo everything again but while doing it it just came to me
- They are already doing an OR with in the scene, all they have to do is switch to AND. We do not need OR in any scene as we can create another scene which logically be ORed.[/quote]
I think you’re almost there. It’s too late to be sure of anything (besides the general direction of my bedroom); but this is how i think would be the simplest route:
[ul][li]currently a scene can be associated with several events and timers. any of them would fire the scene. This is the ‘outer level’ OR[/li]
[li]an event or timer is a single condition, that’s the current limitation.[/li]
[li]we could allow the user to add more conditions to an event, the meaning would be that this event would trigger only if ALL conditions are met. this is the ‘inner level’ AND
[/li][/ul]
So, we get the same structure that we’re aiming to: group conditions with AND, and join those groups with OR. it’s not a general code generator; but would cover an order of magnitude more situations than the current setup.
But this might mean a backend change. AFAICT, the current ‘timer/event/scene’ is not compiled into Lua code, it’s a fixed structure written in the C++ Luup code. Extending this structure means a backend rework.
…or we could remove the current data-structure-based scene triggers, and turn this very same UI into a code generator. That would mean that even the simplest event/timer would be compiled into Lua code and not interpreted by Luup.
i’ll have to check the relevant Luup code. I think that replacing that whole functionality in Lua would be the easiest route.
As Capt. Picard would say: Make it so !
Thanks
Umtauscher
I must agree that it would be very convenient to have selectable logic in the UI. Probably would make a lot of peoples expand their current use of their Vera as well as increasing sales for Mi Casa Verde. I’m one of those who was forced to learn LUA out of necessity. My summer house does not have an Internet connection therefore I can not use sun-up/down feature. I have for many month been using LUA code to trigger 50% of my devices by light & motion sensors in two 3 in 1’s. When you get down to the nuts and bolts its not that difficult. I, as well as many others have posted code that can be cut and pasted with only a device number change for everyone to use.
I still think that basic logic is necessary to round off the out-of-the-box functionality.
I think the whole problem with the current cut/paste idea is that you still have to do a search and research to figure out what it is that you want to do. If it’s in the UI it’s simple as pie. I do think it adds a great value to selling the product also. Once all the UI issues are sorted this is going to be the best most reasonable priced HA device out there. Then MCV will be able to say “It just works” and it will be true. Up to this point I think it’s been false advertising.
any progress?
I vote yes, but I simply reviewed the forum, found a code snippet, replaced the device# and pasted it into my scene. It works and Im no coder…I agree this is scary, but give it a shot
it’s certainly doable.
But it’s a heck of a lot quicker to bring up vera’s webpage and click a few checkboxes rather than having to:
come to the forum, hunt down a code snippet. Figure out how to implement it on one’s individual system (figure out how to edit the code bit for your particular needs). Then test it out on the vera and keep your fingers crossed for a few days of use.
there’s a bunch of things I actually want to accomplish that are too fancy for AND" and “OR” and I’ve been reading a bunch in the luup forum to learn how. So I’m pretty sure my whole setup will be all squared away with lua code well before they implement AND. But if 6 months or a year from now I want to creat a new scene to turn the light on when there is motion and i dont want to have to relearn everything. Hopefully i can just check a box at that point.
In this particular case, the code snippet could be as simple as:
if not is_dark() then return false endwhere the [tt]is_dark()[/tt] function is defined in the (still experimental) timeutils module (http://code.mios.com/trac/mios_genericutils/wiki/TimeUtils).
Admittedly, I’m just a few weeks into owning my Mios (my first foray into Home Automation), but it only took me a few hours to realize the scene tool is very limiting.
It’s nice being able to turn lights on/off from anywhere in the world… but that’s not automation, that’s remote control.
It’s also cool to be able to hit one button and have several lights come on… but that is also remote control vs. automation.
The last time I used programming language was on an Apple IIC. I can’t spend the next several weeks learning how to script with Lau or Luup or whatever it’s called… to be able to have my lights come on only when it’s dark outside AND someone presses the door bell or interacts with my Schlage lock.
Is Mios still too early in its development for me? I’m a DIY guy who loves the possibilities of HA but can’t afford hours and hours of learning programming or scripting to make HA truly useful.
Thoughts?
think it depends on if you NEED home automation or just want it. And also what your price range is.
If you NEED it now and dont care about price than I’d look around before your return period is up- you might still pick the vera as the best choice for you (I did even with it’s limits and rough edges) - but you should look at your other options. (hate to have to say that here in their backyard)
To me what I find interesting is that micasaverde/mios seem to be wanting to make an appliance for joe sixpack so he can just plug it in and figure it out intuatively and it ‘just works’. Sort of like tivo made the DVR something you just plug in and dont even need to read the book- then you set it and forget it and the box that just works.
Tivo has also made choices over the years assuming J6P is too stupid to figure things out (they refused for ~10 years to put an indicator in the UI to tell the end user how much free space the drive had at any one moment, they insist on copying content between their boxes rather then streaming becasue it’s more robust for wireless networking if connections aren’t that great, for many years they had ‘wishlists’ that had single ‘triggers’ like MCV argues are all that is needed here becasue of UI confusion).
So MCV wants to be like tivo, but their boxes DONT “just work” for anything like 99.99% of the buyers, their support clearly has issues at times for some as far as getting timely replies, their beta testing is run like crap, and their communication with this forum of enthusiests is lacking at times (when tivo was small - even when it was exponentially larger than MCV- they also had people assigned to read their forums and keep things 'under control"). Tivo is far from perfect, but MCV could take a few pages out of their playbook
Thanks for your thoughts… i like the Tivo comparision. I picked up a Tivo about a decade ago and have never looked back. It too was very young at the time but it worked well.
It feels like MCV is trying to be too much to too many. Insteon support? Really? Nothing against insteon but MCV needs to perfect Z-wave integration before moving to other technologies. Touch screen support is nice but should be a separate work stream.
All i really want is a simple programming interface that allows me to create some useful automation.