Long Live Vera ! - Make it ezlo’s community version?

[parkerc]

Hopefully this is not too contentious, even though I’ve mentioned this in another post a while back, but considering the community based HA solutions out there, such Home Assistant, OpenHAB, Domoticz etc. I thought I’d float the idea of Vera being ezlo’s community solution?

I appreciate this might be coming from a nostalgic position, plus ezlo are fully focussed on their new range, and understandably so; but Vera in its heyday was, at least in my mind was the go-to HA Controller for many of us, and a massive part of that draw was the quality and commitment of it’s user community.

I’ve said it many time before, but I would not be here today if it was not for those people (and to some degree a few of them keep me here to this day )

So, what does a ‘Community Version’ mean, well I hope that’s evident in the name, which means, as much as possible the product development and associated support would be community based etc. With that said, that approach creates many opportunities for ezlo too, as they can try monitor usage, try out new capabilities/prototypes and if the community is very active then it’s a great source of new ideas, citizen development and positive marketing… (Also the open source market is huge !)

Now, of course Vera today is much more than just its UI software, it’s hardware too, so I’m not entirely sure how things could work initially, but I believe Sercomm are the makers of the hardware, and MIOS/Vera apply their own OpenWRT firmware on top of that it, so there are perhaps some options there, but ideally Vera would be hardware agnostic, able to run on a PC or a Pi etc… That being said, depending on the cost of the hardware, maybe the Vera firmware could be the basis for customised compiling too ? (FYI - That’s exactly what occurs with my Linux VU+ (Enigma) Satalite box, I have the choice of firmware to install on the hardware i bought)

In my mind, there a two main types of Home Automation people in this world, there are those who like to get under the hood and really play around and customise things, and then there are those that just want it to work, and like to have access to premium features and support. That for me is how a VeraPlus and an ezloPlus can happily complement each other and co-exist…

Obviously I can go on an on about many other benefits, plus I can’t deny knowing that, if Vera could live on within the community that helped build it, that would certainly incentivise me to stay with ezlo, plus when i eventually shift from one HA user persona to another, ezlo are ideally placed to support that transition…

Would Vera continuing in a community form be of interest to people, a small way of extending it’s name/brand in the HA space ? Or are there just too many nails in it’s coffin already for it to continue much longer ?

[cw-kid]

I like your thinking and sentiments but alas I don’t think that will ever happen. Not on this forum anyway.

There are not enough experts left here to have Vera being further developed as a “Community Version”.

All the banned experts would need to be restored on the forum, but that is assuming they would now want to come back. The damage has been done.

You can find them now on the other Smart Home forum.

And there is OpenLuup which is a “Community Version” so to speak of for the Vera platform.

[parkerc]

Many thanks for responding @cw-kid , as that’s an interesting take on the proposal,

My thinking was much more around the future, moving forward, and attracting new people to a community driven Vera platform. It would be great if the innovators of the past were tempted back, but we know they’ve moved on, and are happily embracing another HA solutions. (OpenLuup being one :))

And it’s that aspect that actually gets to the heart of the Long Live Vera idea.As OpenLuup came about due to the short comings of the Vera (MIOS) Lua prosecutor/implementation, and a shared desire to address important community bugs and introduce new features capabilities. (They also made it hardware agnostic)

As a commercial offering, I accept Vera Home Control had to keep a tight reign on the Vera product line as they ultimately were the ones who had to support it. But that focus and proprietary thinking has now moved over to their new ezlo range, and understandably so.

Hence for me, I thought I’d float the notion that, do ezlo just want to be seen as a corporate HA company, a hardware/software innovator and integrator or do they also want to give back and help innovate their product line and brand with an alternative ‘free’ offering via Vera. (Very likely with a recognised path from community version (Vera) to corporate (ezlo)

Apologies if I’m getting my terminology mixed up, but I hope you get the idea. and that I’m actually looking ahead, and learning from the past…plus going forward, there are always going to be people who will come to an HA crossroad in there life. Where do I go next, or what alternative can I try next, OpenHAB, HomeAssistant, OpenLuup etc…

Why not have Vera in that list too ?
(Differentiated by having the ezlo brand behind it……)

[cw-kid]

Ezlo have stated already from a top level source that Ezlo firmwarwe will likely be made available at some point, to run on your own hardware like a Raspberry Pi for example.

This may or may not come to pass though.

However we all knew at the very start Vera was not and never really was an open source and fully driven community product.

(Although it was the community and the 3rd party Devs that saved Vera in the end)

It was always officially a corporate product.

At the end of the day, say 12 years ago or however long us old timers jumped onboard, we knew that the Vera hub was the best Z-Wave hub available at that time and had a very good and open http Api, that was easily used and integrated into many other 3rd party dashboard apps and other HA systems such as Home Assistant, those users just used their Vera hubs as Z-Wave “radios”.

Even the high end rich crowd with their fancy Control 4 professionally installed HA systems, used a Vera hub as the Z-Wave radio.

If you want open source, then go that way, use Home Assistant.

For me personally I only stuck with my Vera hubs for so long because on the whole they worked and were fairly stable, despite some ups and down with various firmware releases and because of the 3rd party PLEG logic engine, if it wasn’t for PLEG and now MSR and the 3rd party Home Remote dashboard app and before that Imperihome app, I would of ditched Vera hubs years ago.

Back in the day the Vera Control Ltd Tech support was excellent and impeccable.

Another main reason I stuck with them. I could email the support desk or even call the USA from the UK if I was really stuck and in need of a quick fix and 9 times out of ten they delivered.

Sadly that is not the same case today since the Ezlo take over and their support desk has lapsed it seems…

And as for Ezlo and the future?

How long is a peice of string? Development seems to take forever and seems very slow and frustrating at times, but there is many moving parts to building a competent and complex HA hub from the ground up, as they are doing now.

It’s still not at feature parity with the old Vera firmware hubs, but maybe one day?

[parkerc]

I questioned myself many times before starting this thread, about whether I’m just being stubborn/lazy and just don’t want to see the Vera experience go away.

And while nostalgia does play a part, when I look at the market out there, and what ezlo is coming out with, their apis etc, it seems to be quite a shift ? (I recall reading this that you did a while back - CW's IDIOT GUIDE - To Ezlo platform HTTP API commands aka Luup Requests - #3 by cw-kid)

But I digress, my goal with this particular thread was to present and discuss the idea/concept of Vera being preserved in it’s current form (with it’s luup/lua/upnp aspects) by ’a’ community of some sort (maybe spin a new forum off) - but have it all done under the watchful eye of ezlo ?

Yes, there is OpenLuup, and I’m a big admirer of that, but communities alone can only go so far, plus it’s not Vera (MIOS), and ezlo will have a wealth of content that’s still in use, or they might considered it as redundant, (plus I have no idea what they’re doing these days with all the licensed MIOS solutions (Bosch, Constellation to name a couple) is that element/market still innovating, or are they all redundant now too ?)

A good question for you is, and i appreciate this will be based on your specific needs, but as someone who has more than dipped their toe into the ezlo world, if the Vera experience could be maintained, would you continue to make use of it, or are you happy to see it go, and migrate over and embrace ezlo ?