Multiple Veras

Community Playground General Discussions
#1

This is probably a stupid question that I should know the answer to, but why would you need multiple Veras? It seems like my Edge controls way more devices than I’ll probably ever have. I suppose this question could also include people who add another controller like SmartThings or Harmony.

Thanks for the education.

#2

Some people in here have a boat load of devices and actually need to spread it over multiple Vera’s as it’s too much for 1 to handle. Also, if you have a large home, 1 Vera may not completely cover it.

In my case, I have my original Ui5 Vera and my Ui7 QA Vera. The latter I was using to test UI7 so I did not mess up my production setup. It’s been stable enough that I pulled it in production and any new Zwave devices are added to that one.
The old Ui5 unit however is rock solid so rather than fixing what ain’t broke I run a dual unit setup. Both vera’s communicate via http calls to run scenes and control devices on eachother.

#3

I have a few of the cases above. I have a large detached garage that works better with it’s own vera. I also am lucky enough to have a 2nd vacation home along with a primary home. So I have 3 veras in total currently.

Another reason I have the 3rd is that I had 2 LITES then upgraded both to EDGES which left me with a total of 4. I gave one to a friend and still ended up with 3.

When the new Edge PLUS comes out in the next few months, I’ll probley end up with yet another toy.

Also plugins fill up a vera very fast unlike devices. You can start running into memory issues with 10 devices and 10 plugins vs. just having 200 light switches (devices). Plugins use up alot more RAM then a bunch of devices (switches). I think this leads people to think of the 200 device limit like an impossible thing to hit in a 1,500 sf home. But then they install weather plugins, cameras, and bunch of other things that bog vera down and don’t realize the load they put on the vera since they just think of the 200 number.

Forget the 200 number!

#4

I have two vera 3s and a third I haven’t installed yet, largely for coverage reasons. We have a large home and have a number of devices outdoors, so we’re pushing the range, even with the antenna mod. The main driver was a door lock a fair distance from the main controller–it just works better with a unit a few feet away. Most of the outdoor devices are close to this as well. Third vera is for a studio outside of the home which is still in progress.

While the main reason I got the additional units was distance, I can easily see device count becoming an issue–just switches alone can add up fast if you do your whole house. And it’s a pretty addictive hobby–I think of new things I want to automate all the time and if they’re automated, ideally I want them to interface with vera.

I’ll likely break down and get the new vera, but since I’m still on UI5 and finally have a system that mostly works, not in a hurry to make the transition.

#5

I have two Vera 3 running under UI5 right now. One handles about 95% of the ZWave attachment and the PLEGS to manage lights, locks, etc. The second unit handles the DSC Alarm Plug In, the Blue Iris Plug in, MySensors Plug In and some miscellaneous functions using PLEG.

The two units communicate using HTTP calls between themselves and also to and from Blue Iris. This interface is excellent and delays are essentially unnoticeable.

My plan is to do essentially what BOFH has done and that is to bring up UI7 on a new Vera (VeraPlus if they ever decide to release it) and gradually migrate to UI7 on that box over time.

#6

I currently have four Veras (OK, this is not a competition), three Lites running UI5 (two in main house and one in an office/studio) and one Edge with UI7. The Edge is a development machine for plugins, etc.

I am in the process of migrating all scenes and plugins off the Veras and onto open-source platforms like BeagleBone Black (cf. Raspberry Pi) leaving the Veras as simply Zwave to IP bridges. This makes them much more reliable. All the plugins I need run unchanged on the new platform since they are running under a Luup emulation environment which is bridged to all the Veras.

A single machine for plugins is, in fact, more than enough since it generally has vastly more resources than any Vera. However, the emulation environment itself is much more efficient than Vera so it turns out that my current needs can actually be met by a single Arduino Yun (that’s a normal Arduino card with a 400 MHz Linux processor on the board too.)

I’m also migrating slowly away from Zwave (which is expensive, not totally reliable with Vera as a controller, and restrictive) to open source MySensors devices.

#7

[quote=“akbooer, post:6, topic:188941”]I currently have four Veras (OK, this is not a competition), three Lites running UI5 (two in main house and one in an office/studio) and one Edge with UI7. The Edge is a development machine for plugins, etc.

I am in the process of migrating all scenes and plugins off the Veras and onto open-source platforms like BeagleBone Black (cf. Raspberry Pi) leaving the Veras as simply Zwave to IP bridges. This makes them much more reliable. All the plugins I need run unchanged on the new platform since they are running under a Luup emulation environment which is bridged to all the Veras.

A single machine for plugins is, in fact, more than enough since it generally has vastly more resources than any Vera. However, the emulation environment itself is much more efficient than Vera so it turns out that my current needs can actually be met by a single Arduino Yun (that’s a normal Arduino card with a 400 MHz Linux processor on the board too.)

I’m also migrating slowly away from Zwave (which is expensive, not totally reliable with Vera as a controller, and restrictive) to open source MySensors devices.[/quote]

Am

Do you use PLEG and if adj how does that work with respect to a Vera connected device providing a trigger?

#8

@akbooer - I’m curious about why you chose to go with the Arduino Yun, rather than the much more powerful Raspberry Pi 2 at half the price of the Yun?

#9

It started out as an experiment, but in the end turned out to be just what I needed. It’s because the Arduino on that board can run the Ethernet gateway to MySensors devices (using an attached radio module) and then Linux processor can run the MySensors plugin completely unmodified. You also have built-in WiFi (or does the new Pi have that?)

Also, you don’t need a powerful processor to run a decent controller. On the Yun I’m currently running in about 10 Mbytes and using only 5% cpu on average. You couldn’t get away with it if you were running Java (I’ve read that RPi can be slow with, for example openHab) but this is pure Lua.

When you think about the actual computational requirements, HA really shouldn’t be that demanding.

#10

I don’t use PLEG - you’d have to ask Richard about that.

However, in general, when bridged to a remote Vera, all the usual triggers are available (almost all arise from a change of device variable value) and timers are run locally. Since plugins run in the emulation environment, virtual devices (such as weather readings, Netatmo devices, etc.) are all locally available for triggers too. I don’t use the normal Vera trigger code, since I consider it deeply flawed in many ways, but use the variable watch technique which is also supported by the ALTUI interface.