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Community Playground Getting Started & Initial Setup
1

Okay folks, I searched and searched trying to find an answer before posting but to no avail. I’ve just setup a new Vera Lite Controller with one device, the Yale Touchscreen Electronic Lock. I had no problems creating the account, pairing the lock, creating user codes, etc. Everything is working fine with one exception, I can’t get the system to send me any notifications via SMS or email. Under devices, for the lock, I selected notification for unlock, lock, bad pin, etc. I also have enabled TXT and email under User Info and successfully validated both email and txt. I also have myself set for notification “Yes” on all four house modes. I don’t know what else to do. The alerts all show up in the apps but no email or SMS notifications at all. Any advice would be much appreciated!

Dave

2

Based on you description I Assume you are using UI7? if so at this point Notifications actually don’t work in UI7 so you have to set up Scenes instead which do work. There are some tutorials on setting up Scenes in UI7 if you are unfamiliar.

3

Well, I saw where many people referred to UI7 but I don’t know what that means, I assume User Interface 7? When I first ran through setup it stated my firmware was out of date so it updated the firmware. I have firmware version 1.7.439. I guess I’ll look for the tutorials for scenes but if you have a link to post I’d appreciate that.

I also saw some posts where folks were using a plugin for notifications. Now that you say the notifications don’t work properly in UI7 I guess that makes sense. Is a third party plug-in something you might recommend?

Thanks so much for any advice!

Dave

4

This should get you in the right direction:

[url=https://www.youtube.com/user/veratraining]https://www.youtube.com/user/veratraining[/url]

http://support.getvera.com

As for the Plug-in you are referring to that is called VeraAlerts which allot of people use. I personally have a defective Vera3 so I haven’t had a chance to try it out. If you search though there is lots of info on VeraAlerts. Also the developer is very helpful & active here. I plan on trying it out myself when I make sure mine is stable.

Right now I just set-up Scenes with notifications & it works well although I get a ton of emails& txt but I like the notifications.

5

Okay, thanks. Yes, I added the scenes last night and the notifications worked fine using scenes. However, I’m not getting the info in the notification I had hoped to get. For instance, I assumed the “Door is unlocked” notification would tell me what user unlocked the door or at least what PIN was used but it doesn’t. Just did a quick search and found folks talking about this but they’re using Vera Alerts. Guess I should give that a try as well to get the level of notifications I want. Thanks again!

Dave

6

When you are setting up scenes you must choose to setup “A PIN Code is entered” which will notify you when someone uses their pin code. I use it daily & it works fine. Also what I did was one “A PIN Code is entered” all locks with each user. This was so I could just have one scene for multiple locks per user.

7

Yes, I figured that out but forgot to check back here for replies. Thanks again. I’ve been playing with the lock again today and searching the forums but can’t find an answer for how to control other functions (besides locking, unlocking, notifying) of the lock through Vera. For example, I go to the device options section under the lock and number 8 is for operating mode. The instructions say to enter the desired value in the input box then click outside to send the command. I do this (enter 2 for privacy mode) and it pops up a box that says data saved but it doesn’t change the value in the current value column nor does it actually send the command to the lock.

8

This thread is a little stale, but for the benefit of those stumbling across it…

After changing/saving the option, I think you need to go to the Advanced tab, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the “Configure Node Right Now” button.

9

[quote=“KenJ, post:8, topic:184564”]This thread is a little stale, but for the benefit of those stumbling across it…

After changing/saving the option, I think you need to go to the Advanced tab, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the “Configure Node Right Now” button.[/quote]

Nothing wrong with bringing a good thread back.

10

I set up a motion sensor and for some reason it keeps sending me Text/Emails (SMS) alerts. I first set the limit from 20 to 1 but that didn’t stop them. Then I set it to 0 notifications. The motion sensor is set to “unarmed”.
I walked into the garage twice today, received 7 emails and 14 texts the first time (I grabbed something out of the car, so I was only in there 20 seconds or less), the second time was equally brief, but I received 11 emails and 22 text messages.
I get charged 0.20 per text so…
I’ve unplugged the Vera.
Texts still coming in, perhaps latent.
What is going on?

Garage:
2x Schlage Z-Wave Home Door and Window Sensor RS100
Connected to Dakota Alert 2500 for Motion (sensor on the driveway) and Button Trigger (in the car).

Aeotec By Aeon Labs Gen5 Z-wave Motion Sensor
Leviton VRMX1-1LZ Dimmable Light Switch

Vera Edge

11

As it turned out, I didn’t connect the dots due to the 20 minute + delay, but the Text/SMS messages were due to a door sensor which I THINK might have been set to ARMED, adjacent to another door sensor that I was trying to setup with magnets/etc. It looks like all the alerts were within 20 minutes of each other, but took over 3 hours to propagate with Text messages.
So even after I had triggered “0 Text Messages” and unplugged the Vera, I still got 30-40 texts.

Not sure how many in total, but at the beginning of the afternoon I had $21.45 in phone credit which it proceeded to consume for hours and hours after. After giving up on the sensor and the text messages (and unplugging the Vera), I went on a 60 mile bike ride where I received 20-30 more messages that consumed the remainder of my phone credit while I was riding. That’s $21 worth of text messages within less that 30 minutes of activity. At the time, my settings were default (20 text/day) but I set it to “1” after receiving nearly 20, but that didn’t help. Most of the texts were “1 of 2” which probably didn’t help matters. Setting to “0” texts probably didn’t help because 50+ were already triggered. The catch was that they did not notify immediately, but 20+ minutes later… when the first wave came in. Then the second wave… then 3 hrs later, the final wave which finally consumed all my $21 credit (which usually lasts me 3 months)… in a span of 20 minutes of Vera debugging.

Thankfully, I finished the 60 mile ride without incident. If I had needed to call someone in the event of a mechanical failure, I would have a very long walk home.

Insult to injury, when I came home, the motion scene I set for the light to come on (the one I received so many expensive alerts about) on did not trigger.

Got dressed. I left the house through the garage, right next to the motion sensor, and I saw the green light on the motion sensor come on (triggering motion) but everything was dark… it did not trigger the garage light to come on (same scene I’ve been notified, and notified, and notified, and notified, and then… notified and… wait, notified some more, then notifited and notified about).

When I pulled up to the house 40 minutes later after a trip to town, the light in the garage was already lit! The scene was “Motion ON, then after 8 minutes and OFF”. How is it on after 40 minutes that the light is finally ON? When I left it was dark, even with all the motion!?

Geez.

A very insulting day of Z-Wave and Vera.

The cheap motion sensor light on the driveway installed 15 years ago still worked, just like it always does.

The old days of X10 are looking better and better.

Am I doing something wrong in execution or in product selection?

  • Vera Edge
  • Dakota Alert with 2 sensors/zones: Motion Sensor @ driveway, Button Trigger in car
  • Motion Sensor: Aeon Labs Gen5 Plus Z-wave 6-in-1
  • Garage Dimmable Switch: Leviton VRMX1-1LZ