Raspberry Pi as Secondary Controller

Community Playground General Discussions
1

I’m using Vera Edge and is kind of satisfied.

But when looking around for wall switches with multiple switches or something similar there’s really nothing there or is super expensive. So I figured that I might give Raspberry Pi a shot with a small touch display.

Looking but cannot find information about using the Raspberry Pi as an remote only or secondary controller. Does it work and if so how? Can the raspberry read all configurations and keep updated with my Vera Edge?

thanks

2

Yes it can to all your questions.

I use the raspberry pi as a secondary, and use it a lot. Vera likes to auto setup associations with linear 3-way switches with itself which cause the wall switch to become unresponsive at times so they associations need removed, but you can’t do it through the UI, the raspberry pi lets you remove these. Raspberry pi’s UI and mobile app load much quicker (no green spinning wheel, it just loads). The raspberry pi will also allow for secure remote login (so I can port forward if I wish), and a couple other little things.

The thing you need though isn’t just a raspberry pi. You need the raspberry pi + razberry pi daughter board. The razberry is a small daughter board for the raspberry pi that has a z-wave+ chip on it so the raspberry pi can use z-wave. If you have that it’s as simple as setting the vera into inclusion mode, and setting the raspberry pi into learn mode. The raspberry will then set the Vera as the primary suc/sis and any new devices can be picked up from the raspberry.

If you have more questions let me know. Like I said I have this exact setup, so I’m pretty familiar with it.

I think this is answering your question. Unless you are talking about setting up a pi and using i/o pins for multiple buttons which get relayed to the controller?

3

Awesome Erasmuz. Thanks for super good explanation. Will get the raspberry chipset addon and try it out :slight_smile:

4

A software alternative would be to try out on the RPi the openLuup environment which simulates Vera. You can bridge it to your Vera and run scenes on it to control all the devices there, or do pretty much anything you like (except connect directly to Zwave devices.)

5

Can the reverse be possible, to use Vera as the secondary?

I have an unusual problem in that I need to test some new Z-Wave (Gen5) devices, being located in Australia, we have been abandoned by Mios and have no alternative in which to use the Gen 5 chipset.

While I’m happy using UI5 as my system behaves and functions nearly perfectly, to have the extended capability of Gen 5 inclusion is a great temptation…

6

In theory this should be possible. The inclusion mode of a secondary SUC/SIS controller is a z-wave feature. I have not tried this though, and don’t know how the Vera will react, and if it will play nicely.

7

kidkic, have you gone any further with this?

I have a raszberry now and am interested in how it interacts with Vera?

8

[quote=“Erasmuz, post:2, topic:188887”]Yes it can to all your questions.

I use the raspberry pi as a secondary, and use it a lot.[/quote]

I realize this topic is very old but I am very interested in your setup.
Are you still using a pi with z-wave as a secondary to vera? what software are you running on the pi?

If you are no longer running this setup what have you gone to instead?