I am wondering if Vera can be used with any locks that are compatible with the Z-Wave system to schedule weekly unlocking of the doors. Case would be, 7 day programmable to unlock the doors and lock them at a certain time of the day. Open and 9am close at 11am and open at 6pm and close at 8pm, do this without accessing the web interface, or keypad. Same with the lights couple scenarios around the same time, seven day set up, and thermostat, just like those 7 day programable thermostats.
What is the range of the Vera system, how far those locks and light switches can be located? Any experiences. I am especially concerned with the locks and lights. Any help or sharing of experience will be very much appreciated.
sbeast
yes- vera can do all that.
what kind of distances are you looking at? z-wave networks are local mesh networks. So tens of feet between devices is what you can expect. But the vera neednt be directly ‘visible’ to the lock - if for example the vera can talk to the lamp and the lamp can talk to the look then there is no need for vera to talk straight to the lock.
locks can only talk to certain devices directly since they are battery powered they use an energy saving transmission system called beaming that only more modern devices can ‘speak’.
Thank you for the information, what about the unlocking of the deadbolt, does this happen mechanically or a person has to be there to unlock it. I read that the Schlage ZWave locks unlock for ten seconds but the deadbolt has to be turned manually. What I thought they do is that they open the deadbolt at a scheduled time. Have you had any experiences with it?
If you want the lock to operate automatically, you would do well to look at the Kwikset line. They are motorized and can lock and unlock on their own.
exactly- either kwikset of schlage knobs/levers can lock or unlock.
But only the kwikset deadbolt is motorized so it can throw the bolt or open it. The schlage still requires a human to turn the lever to throw or open the bolt.
Michael, thank you for the direction in my search for manless locks, one more question, kwikset works with Vera?
Sure does!
Does the lock notify Vera of its state? i.e. locked or unlocked? Was thinking then this could be my alarm system. the locked state would be away and the unlocked state could be home…
Yes it does but it’s not 100% reliable at the moment to show the correct state.
JOD.