I want to put Vera in a vacation rental home and add 3 Trane thermostat but I am concerned about reliability issues. I live 1,000s of miles from the house and if it goes down I have a serious problem. Does anyone have any comments on my proposed plan? Any choices I should make when I set it up? How far from the Vera can the thermostats be?
I would go with 3 separate internet thermostats if that is all you would like to control.
I have 2 WD thermostats running and control is great. There was a bug in the readings (27F off!) but after a couple of months of grousing and waiting for MCV to get with it all is working well now. Get a remote temp sensor or two to check the thermostats against though. Belts and suspenders.
If you haven’t gotten the gist of it yet from the forums yet, you will soon. Vera is still rough around the edges and it’s less than completely dependable. Having said that I have saved a few hundred dollars (real money!) on my heating bill since January. If you have a thick skin, give it a try.
Good luck!
The trane stat display’s temps correctly.
I have a similar situation. A second home 750 miles away from Vera. I too, worry about temperature control. I have two WD thermostats, and run 1.0. 979. I have never experienced the 27 degree offset problem (lucky I guess) and the Wayne Daltons have been rock solid so far (I’m guessing a year and a half). I would have liked to have fan control which I do not, but I will sacrifice features for reliability.
I also use visual clues with a couple of IP cameras. If I see mushrooms growing, it’s probably too hot, Icicles… well, you get the idea.
Seriously, though, I think, if you keep your Vera system simple, and use a stable version, you can reliably maintain your HVAC remotely. I hope it works out for you.
Anthony
I don’t have any thermostats yet but I have many devices, motion, door/window sensors and water/temp sensors and my vera (UI3) has been extremely stable. I also have my router forwarding ports to all my cameras and one of my cams also has a temp sensor in it. Unless my cable modem or main router (vera is a Wifi Client) goes belly up, Im good to go for remote access.
My biggest issue is Vera reboots every now (at least I think it reboots since the dongle light goes OUT) and then, and if I happen to be running a timer or try to execute a scene at this time it won’t execute. This seems to happen a few times a day if not more, I really can’t tell and don’t know if there is a way to tell reboots
I have 3 vacation rentals and 2 Vera’s controlling them with Schlage dead bolts and WD thermostats. Had I known about the fan part not being controlled I would have got the Trane. As far as the dead bolts I may have gone with the handles instead because people forget to lock it sometimes and it would be nice to be able to remotely lock it but on to your question.
I’m running UI2 .979 because I’ve tried all the others and have had issues. I haven’t had any down time in months except for trying other firmware versions that always fail me. I’m running it via wifi client mode so it can be hidden away. The only issue I’ve had lately is sometime it doesn’t log some of the door lock usage on one of the locks about 10% of the time. This only happened since a lockup of when I tried to install UI3 and it completely crashed one of the Vera’s. When I reverted back to .979 it started doing that. I may just have to rebuild/reset the lock and it would probably be resolved I just haven’t had time.
I’m sure it will get even more reliable soon with newer firmware’s. Being far away from it I wouldn’t try any remote upgrades to Vera as I’ve never been successful doing that and always ended up going there and unplugging them to get them up and running again. Also don’t install a new firmware without waiting about a month or so because it seems they always release them with many issues at first. Let people that have access to them locally test them out for a while and get the bugs out. You will see all the issues or lack thereof watching the forums.
Over all they are a valuable device.
I think some of the reliability issues are Z-Wave related or how Vera/the Dongle handles the Z-Wave data. It can get corrupted, in my experience, and doing a network repair doesn’t necessarily fix it. I think the only fix is a reinstall as “reiserx” suggest about the Schlage lock. My network was running great until I tried to play around with a motion sensor that I don’t think is fully supported yet (Intermatic CA9000), and even after deleting it and the light I tried to associate I think the network is still messed up.
My point is that a Vera with just a few devices on it like a thermostat should be fine for reliability. It should be just as “reliable” as technology gets factoring in power issues, etc. Make sure you use a known stable UI like was suggested, stay away from Beta UI’s and you should be fine. Don’t put all your eggs in Vera’s basket or else Murphy’s Law stated you will have a failure at the worst time, can you have a neighbor/worker check the place if Vera stops responding?
I use the WDTC-20 Thermstat too and love it. I see no reason why I would need Fan control, but maybe that’s used in other regions to keep the air circulating. Where I live it is either Heat/Cool or open a window.
@ Shady, The only reason I don’t like the WDTC-20 is because it’s in a vacation rental and people leave the fan on. I was thinking of just gluing the switch in the auto position or take it apart and make the switch be in auto no matter which position it’s in.