After 3+ years of work and frustration with Vera I have finally decided to leave the platform in favor of something else. I just had a Vera Edge controller go belly up for no apparent reason - it had been running fine for weeks with no changes at all to it. AltUI and VeraAlerts were the only plug-ins installed. I have not updated the firmware since Sept. and not added a device or a scene for the last couple of weeks. No changes other than upgrading AltUI when prompted and even that had not been done for a couple of weeks. Vera is so flaky that I try not to disturb when it is running except when absolutely necessary.
On Tuesday while at work Vera Alerts started reporting continuous reboots on the Edge. Arrived home to a dark house and found the controller in a continuous reboot cycle and displaying the error “This Device Does Not Support ZWave Communications”. Could not even try to do a restore because of the spinning circle, etc. Had a brand new Edge - still in the box - that I pulled out and decided to move over to as I have had some other issues with the first Edge (random reboots, etc.). Plug it in and connect to it and I have the same “This Device Does Not Support ZWave Communications” error on a BRAND NEW UNIT. Sent in a ticket with all the pertinent information, remote support enabled, etc. Nothing. No response at all from customer service after nearly 3 days. Was able to finally get a factory reset done to the brand new Edge after several failed attempts. Booted back up - all five lights green. Added the controller and opened UI7 up - same thing. No support for Z-Wave. Not a single device was added and nothing changed from the reboot. Went back into the closet to look at the new Vera and ZWave is cycling on and off. Spinning wheel - LUUP taking too long to reload - etc. That’s it for me. I have had it with the alpha-level software and under-powered hardware that cannot even perform the most basic functions of WORKING right out of the sealed box.
The Edge was only 3 months old and replaced a Vera 3 that developed the memory errors that customer support could not fix. I had to completely start from scratch and reprogram everything again (over 200 devices including more than 20 Aeon Micro Controllers installed in ceiling boxes and fans) when I moved to the Edge. I had already had TWO Vera 3 units fail with the memory issues over the past couple of years and now with two defective Vera Edge units it brings the total to 4 out of 5 controllers that are junk. I currently have another Edge running in a detached garage but I will be removing it and tossing it in the garbage as soon as I settle on a new automation platform.
It has become clear that, especially since the release of UI7 that Vera is not ready for a production HA environment. The software is too unreliable and the controllers themselves suffer from a variety of issues including a lack of CPU power and memory storage. Compared to something like a Raspberry PI 2 the Vera is grossly overpriced for what it is and does. The backup and restore procedures are a joke. I have never been able to do a successful restore on any of the various Vera units once they fail. Customer Service has not been able to perform a successful restore ever. The sheer size of my network and isolation of many of the in-wall devices makes a lack of working backups unacceptable.
Device support is terrible. It has been months since the Aeon Multisensor Gen 5 units hit the market and yet there is still no real support. Same with the Aeon Smart Switch 6. These are mainstream devices from a top-tier Z-Wave manufacturer that should be made available the next firmware cycle. Other sensors randomly refuse to report status and have to be manually reset from time to time. I still cannot use my Z-Wave smoke alarms (ZCOMBO / ZSMOKE) in UI7 because the firmware still doesn’t support reporting properly. Items are reported to CS and are never addressed. Adding the newest and greatest Z-Wave devices on the Vera is useless because it is often months or years before Vera decides to incorporate them into their programming. The primary selling point of Edge was the 500-series chip and Z-Wave Plus support but most of the Z-Wave + devices don’t work correctly. Most of the inclusion wizards are completely unnecessary since the only thing that works is the Generic Device add. Geofencing does not work correctly and does not support two or more users. Locks refuse to program correctly without modification to the internal parameters. The lists of issues are nearly endless.
I have recently been moving my devices over to a Z-Stick Gen5 on the inControl HA software platform. It recognizes my Smart Switch Gen 5 units right out of the box and correctly reports ALL of the energy settings. The software actually turns these switches off and on (Vera doesn’t). Multisensor Gen 5 works flawlessly. ZSMOKE shows the proper status. Adding devices is a snap and is instantaneous with the ZStick rather than the laborious process of inclusion with Vera. The Enerwave Scene Controllers work natively without a bunch of arcane LUUP programming to try to get the buttons to run scenes correctly. Scenes and devices react instantly instead of seconds later as is typical with the Vera. inControl allows easy configuration of devices, OTA updates of Firmware on the Z-Wave + devices, and a much simpler means of configuring parameters than the UI7 program. The interface isn’t nearly as slick as AltUI but is far better than the UI7 native interface. Notifications are not as developed as VeraAlerts which is a downside for me but not one that compares to dumping 150 dollar controllers in the trash every few months.
I will probably install a Raspberry PI 2 with Win 10 embedded out in the garage to replace the Vera - depending on whether or not I can get signal out to the detached garage with the Z-Stick. Vera never was able to do it which necessitated the second controller. Bridging the two units never was stable although AltUI took care of most of those issues.
To all those that helped - especially with AltUI I am grateful. People have put tremendous effort into trying to make Vera into something better. The problem is that no matter how much lipstick is applied, Vera will always be a pig of a product. It just isn’t capable of being reliable enough to use as a home automation controller. Time will tell if inControl is superior but the limited testing I have done so far is very encouraging.
There are definitely features of Vera that I will miss - the biggest is this forum itself. It is a wealth of information that solved many of my problems over time. The InControl community is much smaller so there just aren’t the numbers of people with the experience that exists here.
Fully understand your frustration. My main question for Vera, is is this system just supposed to be a toy or a hobbie, or something we can trust to run and secure our house? Big difference. The system has to be rock solid to run and secure a house. At this point I have issues with placing it in the latter category. I also wonder honestly how the business model works for them, as the money seems to mostly come from controller hardware. There does not seem to be a recurring revenue stream for them that does not involve buying a new controller each year.
In it’s current incarnation, Vera is in no way a home security system. It’s pretty good at home automation and my Ui5 Vera3 that runs the majority of the devices is rock solid. GetVera is working on hardware that is supposed to include a security system. Possibly with an optional monthly monitoring fee. My home security system is K9 based but I have a Vera 3 with UI7 that runs a number of PIR, smoke and door/windows sensors to give me notifications if those trip. I can remotely check the camera’s and see if something is going on or not. It’s not in any way a security system but more a ‘can I do this’ project that turned into a ‘this works decently, lets use it’ setup.
My Vera 3 Ui7 box is pretty stable, but I am about 2 firmware revisions behind as I learned and let others test out the new releases and check comments before I upgrade. Which I haven’t for the last 2 ones due to the experiences of others.
Having been in IT the majority of my working life, I know better than to try an keep a production system at the cutting edge of the latest updates. Especially when it’s working. That’s what QA or test systems are for. Granted m HA system is not crucial to run my house but it provides me with a lot of comfort I would prefer not to lose.
Funny I have Incontrol license and moved to Vera because of issues with Thermostats loosing connection and not having better logic for scenes, other then that it was not bad. Only reason for staying with Vera is PLEG and Imperihome. I definitely miss not having to wait for a restart every time something is changed in the settings.
You do not need to do a restart after every change.
I make batches of changes … when I am done … and want to verify the changes I do the Vera Two Step
Restart LUA
This makes sure that plugins use the new data. Many plugins initialize them selves when LUA restarts and are not setup to handle dynamic configuration changes.
Refresh the Browser
The browser can contained incorrect cached data … Need to clear the cache with a refetch F5
Check out Indigo. Software running on a Mac. It has a supportive community in which the developers participate regularly. Even has a Vera plug-in! I’m running Indigo at my main residence, and a Vera Lite at the beach shack.
Just to do a little to redress the balance. I have two Vera3s, one in the US and one in the UK and I can honestly say that I have had absolutely no problems with either of them in the 2 years+ they have been working.
When I got the first Vera3 when I was playing/learning with it I did get it to hang once or twice but I am pretty sure that was my own fault. The only thing “non-standard” I do to prevent possible problems is to have both Veras automatically reboot once a week.
I think the Vera doom-and-gloom postings paint a picture worse than reality for the majority of Vera users. I know the interface is clunky and the scenes are limited (easily fixed by using the excellent PLEG) but mine just work.
It may not seem like it, when reading recent forum posts, but this is the reality.
Forum posters are only a tiny fraction of Vera users. Most forum posters are here because they have run into a problem and are looking for a solution.
I believe that the very vast majority of Vera users don’t heavily utilize their Veras with lots of devices and plugins and complex logic. I think that they use Vera as a timer mostly and that they have no problems at all so they never appear on the forum.
This doesn’t mean that Vera doesn’t have problems. But there has been a sudden uptick in kvetching posts and apparent refusal to read manuals or prior posts that are not an accurate representation of the larger Vera user population.
[quote=“kennedyj, post:10, topic:189772”]Just to do a little to redress the balance. I have two Vera3s, one in the US and one in the UK and I can honestly say that I have had absolutely no problems with either of them in the 2 years+ they have been working.
When I got the first Vera3 when I was playing/learning with it I did get it to hang once or twice but I am pretty sure that was my own fault. The only thing “non-standard” I do to prevent possible problems is to have both Veras automatically reboot once a week.
I think the Vera doom-and-gloom postings paint a picture worse than reality for the majority of Vera users. I know the interface is clunky and the scenes are limited (easily fixed by using the excellent PLEG) but mine just work.[/quote]
Hear hear,
My Vera Edge has run rock solid since set-up even with each of the firmware updates. I believe that most of the negative comments come from the minority who seem to expect every latest piece of hardware released to instantly be designed in. The only way this can work is if MCV made all the hardware and only put it on sale when ready. This is the Apple method and we all know what that does for pricing.
I am a super happy user with Vera. The difference may be I don’t expect vera to work 100% for all the devices. If one or two devices are not working as expected in each firmware update, I don’t bother much.
As stated before my UI5 Vera 3 is rock solid which is why I’ve it upgraded it to UI7 yet. It does what it needs to do and it does it reliably. My ui7 Vera 3 is pretty solid as well but as said, I;ve learned to sit back and watch comments on new firmware’s before jumping in. Having ghost alerts on smoke sensors every 30 minutes in the middle of the night. Forcing a midnight firmware rollback tends to do that to me.
Apart from the Geo fencing issues on the Android beta app (which I am able to compensate for using the DD-WRT presence script) most everything is running well.
The only reason I’m keeping an eye on other platforms is for a plan B backup in case Vera is suddenly out of the picture. Even though HA is not essential to me, I’m enjoying the comforts it brings me and I don’t really wan to give up on those.
Just want chime in and say that vera has come a long way even though there is some progress to be made.
Gone are the nightly heal, gone are the random drop of the web server and full reboot of the vera when you are lucky.
I am still dealing with this random Luup engine reload which stops the whole system. It would not be a problem if it reloaded faster but it takes sometimes over 30 seconds and can be annoying.
The strength of the community is what is making this system worthy giving support to a variety of devices. I am happy today not to have given up when I was tempted.
What do you mean by apps? The only plugs-ins I ran were VeraAlerts, AltUI and the plug-in that allows temperature reporting from the Monoprice / Vision Motion Sensors.
