I was wondering if anyone had used Roomie Remote www.roomieremote.com, and if anyone had managed to get Roomie talking to Vera?
Never heard of it till now. It appears to me if it had support for Vera it would be the ultimate remote.
I would like to revisit this post as I have my entire system set up with roomie and want to add my Vera 3 to it. They have recently added support to the application, but you must add the device/commands by manual IP address. For the life of me I can’t figure out how to make that happen. I guess my question is…what IP I need to enter or what setting I need to configure to make it work. The local address of the vera on my network is 192.168.1.2 yet reading through documentation ive seen things that said the address should be 192.168.x.(100+)
I DO know that the vera will work with this system, I just can’t figure out how to get it to!
Help?
I’m not sure what you mean you want to add your Vera 3 to Roomie. Are you specifically talking about lighting control? If so, I just setup activities within Roomie and use a silent URL to turn lights on, off, and dim. I’m not sure what or how the new added Vera support is supposed to work within Roomie.
At least the vera is listed on their compatibility page:
http://www.roomieremote.com/ip-compatibility/
I recently integrated Roomie with Vera Lite by combing through both forums. There is information on the Roomie forum @ http://www.roomieremote.com/forums/topic/mi-casa-verde-vera-lite-integration/ and Vera forum @ http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?action=post;topic=11011.0;last_msg=92968, but here is a quick summary that worked with Roomie Remote 1.7 and Vera firmware 1.5.
Vera Steps:
- Set up Vera with a static IP address (or have your router always assign the same one through DHCP) - For example: 10.0.1.68
Roomie Steps:
- Setup the Vera as a device in the room
Select/Create a room
“Add Device…”
Manual IP
IP Address you assigned above
Port 3480
- Create/Edit an activity
Select “Remote Design”
- Add/Edit a command button
Name the botton or select an image
“Add Command…”, choose device “MiCasaVerde Lighting”
Choose a command category (eg: .LIGHT DIM, .LIGHT ON, .LIGHT OFF, .SCENE RUN, etc.).
Enter the Integration ID
For .LIGHT ON/OFF this is the ID number on the Advanced Tab for the device in Vera UI5 (you have to scroll down to find it and don’t use the altid)
For .SCENE RUN, you can find the Scene ID at the top of the Vera UI5 when you edit a scene
For .LIGHT DIM you also need to enter the Brightness (0-100)
That’s all there is to it… I’ve had fun adding lighting, screen control and other environment effects to each room and activity. Some as separate “Activities” such as “Ready Room” or “Read” that only control Vera. Others as commands within an existing activity such as “Watch DirecTV” where it will automatically make sure the screen is lowered, turn the lights to 50% when I pause the movie, etc…
I am impressed with the room/activity based user experience and it has a high WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor). Unfortunately, the Roomie Remote app does not let you get feedback yet (i.e., you can’t see if the light is on/off or what temperature it is).
Best of luck!
Does anyone have any info on the roomie company? The product looks interesting (I use my Logitech remote but it sure is cranky to program) and roomie might be a new way to go - especially if it can be linked to Vera.
But I hate buying from companies that will disappear - I have been burned by this in the past. I am even a little concerned about MCV!
Bob (beachboync)
I got Roomie i set it up with my vera and hue it work good still trying to find time to do better config but I do with they had a desktop design app.
Roomie Just update is a lot better now it has better support of vera. since the gc100 plug in did not work for me roomie is working great so far there a a few automation things i cant dont until micasaverde updates there plug in to support itach flex.
The GC100 plugin will fail (With the pre flex devices) on Vera if you connect to the Global Cahce devices from another IP address other than Vera … like your PC running the GlobalCache test software or Roomie!
I do not know if the FLex will support multiple connections … If it doesn’t it will likely fail when Flex is added to the GC100 plugin.
I started a new topic on this subject but figured I would post here incase any of you Roomie users are subscribed to this thread.
I am new to Vera (less than a week in) but very impressed so far. I am running a Vera Edge on UI7. I setup Roomie remote yesterday for my AV Control. Vera was immediately recognized and when I included Vera into the Roomie interface, all my Vera devices were immediately included into a nice little remote interface. It appears that Vera is truly plug and play with Roomie.
My only issue is that my Schlage Z-Wave Deadbolt lock will not respond to the Roomie on/off commands. All my Z-wave lights and my Z-wave garage door opener worked fine. I also noticed that Roomie doesn’t seem to support scenes or at least I did not see a way to include them where as my devices were automatically recognized. I was wondering if anybody here has experience with Roomie and was able to get senses working and or Z-wave locks and if so, what did you have to do to make it work. If I can get scenes to work, that would likely provide a suitable workaround for the Lock switch interface not working via Roomie as I could just execute lock/unlock via a scene.
I’ve also posted this in the Roomie forums but that thread has not been approved yet and I figured I should also post it here as I know a few members are using Roomie.
On the left hand panel of Roomie, choose a room and then you presumably have activities like ‘Watch TV’ or ‘Watch Movie’. Click the Edit button at the top then the + button for ‘Add Activity’. In the pop up, give it a name and image if you want and scroll down to ‘Add Command’. Click that green + button and choose your Vera from the list of devices. It will be under whatever room you originally created it in. Choose it and then another pop up appears for ‘Choose Command’, with a list of .Door Lock, .DoorUnlock, .LightBrightness, etc. I can’t speak to the .DoorLock/.DoorUnlock commands but I do know that further down the list is the .Scene Run command and that does work. You can choose that option then the scene name from the resulting list and you’re set.
Thank you very much for the reply!! I will give it a try when I get home. I have to say that while I don’t normally like touch screen remotes without buttons, the combination of Roomie with Vera is pretty compelling. Now I just need to order some Roomie Blasters along with an RS232 cable and a IR to PS3 setup and I should be able to control everything from one nice little interface.
Thanks again for your reply and help. I will update this thread with my results later today.
I find lots of great uses for the “tablet as a remote control” setup. Using the vera integration I have an IP ‘baby camera’ setup as a pop-up activity within Roomie. One button press and i can see if my son is still sleeping soundly in his crib. I have another pop-up activity for door/window sensor & locks to ensure everything is closed up before starting to watch a movie at night. I can use the built in directv guide to browse other channel options without pulling up the onscreen guide and blocking the show/movie currently being viewed. The same goes Apple TV. When I’m watching a game and have a stats or sports ‘history’ question, I have the tablet right there since it’s also my remote.
I think Roomie Remote is so well thought out and the device/guide integration is so well done that the normal “i hate touchscreen remotes” arguments are nullified.
Wooohooo… It worked. Thank you very much ctguess. You were a huge help. The only other additional thing I had to do after adding more scenes to Vera was update the Vera manifest in the Roomie Remote device settings page. Once I did that, the new scenes were listed in Roomie and available to be used. Now I just need to figure out how to get the missing DirecTV button commands so I can make a better remote screen than the default DirecTV remote. Off to the Roomie forum to search that out.
[quote=“ctguess, post:14, topic:171918”]I find lots of great uses for the “tablet as a remote control” setup. Using the vera integration I have an IP ‘baby camera’ setup as a pop-up activity within Roomie. One button press and i can see if my son is still sleeping soundly in his crib. I have another pop-up activity for door/window sensor & locks to ensure everything is closed up before starting to watch a movie at night. I can use the built in directv guide to browse other channel options without pulling up the onscreen guide and blocking the show/movie currently being viewed. The same goes Apple TV. When I’m watching a game and have a stats or sports ‘history’ question, I have the tablet right there since it’s also my remote.
I think Roomie Remote is so well thought out and the device/guide integration is so well done that the normal “i hate touchscreen remotes” arguments are nullified. [/quote]
I’ve really been getting deep into the Roomie integration. My two main TV viewing rooms are setup along with Vera. I’ve got 10 or 11 devices setup thus far and next will be proximity location for my two rooms.
I have a question that I am hoping you have figured out. So far, I can see two ways of controlling Vera from Roomie. One is via the Activities which gives me a list of buttons on the left side of the screen. I’ve got that pretty well figured out although it seems you can’t use that to randomly dim a light up or down from a single activity. You can have it turn a light ON or OFF or have it turn a light on or series of lights to a preset brightness or run a scene but near as I can tell, you can’t adjust a light randomly from that function. The other method would be from the built in Vera remote which can be enabled from the Roomie Vera device setup page. While this does work well, when you have a lot of switches and devices controlled by vera, the remotes layout is one long row that isn’t particularly ideal. I was trying to setup a “room” in Roomie called lighting and create a dedicated remote with sliders to control various dimming switches. While I can link the slider to Vera, I can’t associate it with a particular switch.
Have you found any way of creating dedicated remotes in Roomie that can control various lights, switches or devices that Vera controls? Thus far, the only way I can see accomplishing that would be via activites which isn’t really ideal as it seems to have it’s short comings that I mentioned above. If it were possible to change the layout and order to the switches in the default Roomie Vera remote, I suppose it would be useful but from what I can tell, you can’t do that.
Since you are well ahead of me in your Roomie integration and Vera control, I was hoping that you could shed some light in case I was missing something.
Rather than create a separate room for your Vera stuff, create an activity for the specific things you want to be able to control within a room. For example, I have a home theater and therefore want to control all the lights in it, including dimming on demand, so I created a lights activity within my Theater Room. I made it a pop up activity, so that it appears/disappears as needed but does not change the underlying activity I’m in, such as watch movie or watch tv.
From your other posts, you are aware of how to create an activity and get the Vera stuff inside of it. What you now want to do is wittle down the list of Vera devices so that only the ones you care about in the context of the room you’re in are present. The way to do that is to edit the design of the Vera “remote”. Take a look at the roomie_edit_design attachment. It can be a long process if you have a bunch of devices, but what you do just delete the devices you don’t want to see by the normal red delete button. Most devices will have three rows…the action, the status, and the row end.
After (or maybe before so you don’t overwrite something) all you deletes, save this remote design with a unique name. You do that in the edit activity screen (see corresponding screenshot) That way you can create multiple Vera remotes, each with the devices you want.
[quote=“ctguess, post:17, topic:171918”]Rather than create a separate room for your Vera stuff, create an activity for the specific things you want to be able to control within a room. For example, I have a home theater and therefore want to control all the lights in it, including dimming on demand, so I created a lights activity within my Theater Room. I made it a pop up activity, so that it appears/disappears as needed but does not change the underlying activity I’m in, such as watch movie or watch tv.
From your other posts, you are aware of how to create an activity and get the Vera stuff inside of it. What you now want to do is wittle down the list of Vera devices so that only the ones you care about in the context of the room you’re in are present. The way to do that is to edit the design of the Vera “remote”. Take a look at the roomie_edit_design attachment. It can be a long process if you have a bunch of devices, but what you do just delete the devices you don’t want to see by the normal red delete button. Most devices will have three rows…the action, the status, and the row end.
After (or maybe before so you don’t overwrite something) all you deletes, save this remote design with a unique name. You do that in the edit activity screen (see corresponding screenshot) That way you can create multiple Vera remotes, each with the devices you want.[/quote]
Thank you again for your informative reply. I do have several activities setup to control pertinent lights or devices within my various rooms. I have explored the Edit Remote pages but the for some reason, the Vera remote seems to be locked. If I got to edit mode and select my Vera controller under devices, the remote I am using for Vera is the Virtual remote which lists all my switches. That virtual remote does not appear to be editable. I have tried creating a new remote for Vera but that doesn’t seem to work unless I call out specific activities. I guess I need to play with it more when I get home though. I see where I can add a command for “Light On” or “Light Off” or Light Brightness but associating it with a specific light was where I was running into the issue. There is an option for “Lighty ID”. Is that where I set the target light info? I didn’t notice that before but as an example, in my system I have “Bar Light”. In looking at my Vera settings page for that light, it is ID7. I’m guessing I need to put a 7 in the ID field of the custom Roomie vera remote screen for that command?
Here is a screen shot from my iPhone of what I am talking about. I will play with this more tonight but your feedback may have given me a clue. Thanks again!
From memory, and it has been awhile… Maybe what you need to do is create a new remote design and tell it the device type is the Vera. That should then pull in all the devices and you can eliminate those you don’t need.
To create a completely new remote design, you do that from the Rooms page and click the gear icon at the top left. That puts you into the overall settings menu and about half way down there is a ‘Remote Designs’ section. Open that up and choose ‘Add Design’ at the bottom, then choose your Vera on the next screen. That should give you the Vera template to start from.
If that doesn’t work, perhaps you have the ‘prevent editing’ setting turned on by mistake (doubtful since you can do other stuff, but I’m not sure at what level that takes effect)
[quote=“ctguess, post:19, topic:171918”]From memory, and it has been awhile… Maybe what you need to do is create a new remote design and tell it the device type is the Vera. That should then pull in all the devices and you can eliminate those you don’t need.
To create a completely new remote design, you do that from the Rooms page and click the gear icon at the top left. That puts you into the overall settings menu and about half way down there is a ‘Remote Designs’ section. Open that up and choose ‘Add Design’ at the bottom, then choose your Vera on the next screen. That should give you the Vera template to start from.
If that doesn’t work, perhaps you have the ‘prevent editing’ setting turned on by mistake (doubtful since you can do other stuff, but I’m not sure at what level that takes effect)[/quote]
I tried that method first and associated the remote with Vera but it did not pull in any Vera devices as I had hoped. When I add a switch and add a command, it only allows me to select Vera but no switches. I select Add Button where I am presented the list of types: Button, Rocker, Slider etc. When I get home I will try adding a Light ID associated with one of my lights and see if that solves the issue. I suspect it might.
For the Vera Virtual remote there are no Edit or even Prevent Edit options in any of the pages. I’m guessing that the Vera Virtual remote pulls all devices from the manifest list and locks them in. In doing so, it lists them in their device ID order which I think is the order in which I added those switches or devices to my Vera Z-Wave network. I will try to create my own remote again when I get home later today. I think that device ID in the image above may be the solution that I was missing but I can’t test that until I’m home. I will report back this afternoon with my findings.