Seriously considering making the switch from Homeseer to Vera

Community Playground General Discussions
1

Okay, so let me first say, hi! This is my first post here on the Vera forum.

Much like many of you, I’m a fellow home automation guy. My “in a nutshell” background is this:

I’m a bit of a tech/gadget junkie, and home automation has always been something that’s intrigued me and something that I’ve wanted to play around with. A couple years ago, after much research and deliberation, I decided to jump into Homeseer. So, I purchased a Homeseer Pro license. At the time, I chose Homeseer over Vera (and a couple of other options, but it really came down to Homeseer vs Vera) due to, what it seemed, was Homeseer’s flexibility and ability to be, in short, as powerful as I want it to be.

… fast forward 2 years.

I still have Homeseer running on a PC in my house, and I’m currently hovering at around 10 z-wave devices in my house, plus 8 Foscam IP cams. I’m a huge “tinkerer” and DIY guy when it comes to tech/gadgets - the problem is, Homeseer is almost TOO much DIY’er for me. In other words, here I am, 2 years later, and I really haven’t done much at all with building my home automation system due to the simple fact that Homeseer takes a lot of time. Is it powerful? Absolutely. Is it flexible? Definitely. But… is it practical for a guy, like myself, who is into automation but doesn’t want to (and can’t) spend a few hours a week working on it? In my humble opinion, I don’t think it really is. I want to automate a lot more of my house, but with that being said, I’m really not into hacking the code and writing my own scripts. I’ve dabbled in it, but at the end of the day, I just want a powerful and reliable automation solution that I (and my wife) can use to control our house.

So, to make a long story short, I really want to jump back into automation and am once again looking at Vera. But, here is where I’m at. I’m literally at the point where I’m almost ready to click the “order” button on a Veralite, but I was wondering if there is somewhere I can see/read a more detailed description of the actual backend/interface of Vera. I’ve watched all the videos here on the official site, pulled up countless others on youtube etc, but I still feel like I don’t have a grasp of what can really be done with Vera from a trigger and scene/programming standpoint. Being able to setup flexible scenes is extremely important to me. I would love a detailed overview, or better yet, a video, of what the trigger and scene options are with Vera.

Anyway, that’s where I stand. I’m assuming (and hoping) that there are probably some other people here on this forum that made the jump from Homeseer to Vera and I would love to hear from you. I can’t be alone! :slight_smile:

Thanks,
Mark

2

To be honest, what you’re describing Homeseer (which I don’t know) to be is a pretty fair description of Vera. If your underlying Z-Wave network is dense (I think @futzle said: “a dense network is a happy network”*) then it is all reliable enough…

…BUT, the intrinsic scene scripting capabilities are fairly impoverished. You will have to scale the heights of either Lua programming or the syntax of additional logic plugins.

Regarding the backend/interface, don’t, whatever you do, imagine that the Vera web UI is adequate for a casual user. It is, at best, a rather clunky configurator tool. Happily, there are a number of excellent interfaces available for tablets/phones of various sorts. I use HomeWave myself.

Having said that, I’m very happy with the system I have assembled, but it took A LOT of time.

Good luck with your choice.

*Actually, she said “a dense mesh is a happy mesh.”
http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,14313.msg107967.html#msg107967

3

To add to the already good response:

Home Automation is still considered a tinker’s playland. You will find it hard to find a solution that offers the creation of complex scenes with out some time and coding. It all boils down to who does it better. I have been using Vera for a few years now and some of the things I like about it over HomeSeer are:

Cost
Embedded Solution (Low Power)
API’s to create third part apps for phones and tablets, etc.

  • Garrett
4

I agree with both posts so far. Before making the leap into HA, I had been watching what others had done with X10, Homeseer, Mister House, etc. Vera came along with some very big claims and was relatively affordable when compared to other options, but I was still not convinced until I saw what Square Connect was planning on adding with their iOS app. Having a native app not only fulfilled one of the “big claims” that had yet to be delivered, but it greatly improved usability and reduced latency. Now that I am on Android too, @Garrett’s app has added to that good experience.

There are a few users here that have pushed Vera to its limits and some may be at a point where having a PC(a Mac is a PC) based solution is something they are considering for expandability and reliability. I have been happy with my Vera usage for the most part, I have tried to keep scenes and plug-ins to a minimum to conserve memory and things have been good on Vera3 if I stick with known working firmware.

I think the Vera community is a huge asset, I know Homeseer has a great forum, but because of the open nature (and borderline documentation) of Vera’s API there has been a lot of great plug-ins created and due to lack of documentation a lot of forum posts in getting these ideas to fruition and completion. Folks here seem to entertain some fairly wacky solutions and work to build things on a budget, so I feel like some Vera projects follow along with Hack-a-Day or Maker-type projects that a currently enjoy.

As for time spent on Vera vs. Homeseer, I agree with @Garrett’s take that HA is “a tinker’s playland”. The fun is in the pursuit of solutions, until you get fed up and drop something from a month, then come across a post or idea that might have you revisiting it again and then months later finally getting a feature or solution implemented. If you just want to set up Vera to do standard control of Z-Wave devices and you IP cams then the cost of Veralite is worth it. If scene creation is driving your decision I don’t think Vera will be your fix-all, but it has evolved with the work of the community. Maybe just getting Veralite will get you excited about HA again and give you the motivation you are looking for, either way you can always sell it and fall back to HS.

5

I concur with the previous statement and I am one that progressively migrated from Homeseer 2 Pro to Vera2 and now Vera3.

There are no doubt some very fundamental differences and Homeseer support and forum was alway excellent… But as I no longer required a server running all the time, I look for alternative and Vera appeared to be the pick of the crop. A decision I have not regretted.

The forum here; including the growing new blood are second to none! Once you work what you want and how to make it work, you will need to get and do this but after that you can basically leave it alone if you so desire but most don’t.

The 3rd party app are excellent and easy than Homeseer. The alarm integration to DSC is better with the EVL3 but does not have the same level of user interface that was available with Homeseer.

6

When automation is vital to the running of your home you should think twice before leaving it to a PC to manage. PCs, god bless them, may have wonderful user interfaces and vast opportunities for connectivity but they have been know to just stop for no apparent reason.

In industrial automation, the real engines are Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) which are designed to just keep running and, if power is interrupted, bring themselves back up and resume operations. The user interfaces may be PC-based but the engines rarely are.

Vera is a consumer version of a PLC. PCs, iPhones and Androids can give you great user interfaces but Vera will keep it all running when they are switched off, out of range or out of battery. Just my ?0.02’[sup]th[/sup]

7

I don’t think you really learned how to use Homeseer and am wondering if you will ever learn how to use Vera.
Homeseer is far more powerful, flexible, and probably easier to use than Vera.
That being said, I don’t spend a lot of time with Vera, just bought one for my mother because it was only $100 and will do everything she wanted, so I’m not a Vera expert by any means but I’m pretty familiar with Homeseer and if it were going in my home, between those two, Homeseer hands down.

8

Quoted for truth. Thanks for the laugh, Frunple; I don’t know which of the five Vera demigods in this thread your post was directed at, but it doesn’t matter really.

Edit: oh, you were talking to the OP. My mistake.

(ObTopic: I never learned how to use Homeseer either. It took me about five clicks on their website to find out that when they say “a computer to run it on” they mean “a Windows OS to run it on”. Does it run under Wine?)

9

HS3 will.

To the OP. I have used both. Things I can say:

HS is vastly more configurable and MUCH easier to create interesting “Events”. With Vera it’s always jumping through hoops to get more than turning a light on at a certain time done. If you want to expand turning a light on to turning a light on IF, OR (insert anything) then you are out of the boundaries of the Vera interface and will need to look for alternatives. We do now have some decent alternatives thanks to the ingenuity and graciousness of forum members. Vera is much more limited in just about every way. It is true though that it does run on low power consumption dedicated hardware so you don’t have to deal with Windows issues. And some of the plugins, namely DSC, are more up to date with current hardware. I recently saw a HST employee post on their forum that they don’t currently have plans to support any interface aside form the IT-100. HS is very last decade in this way. Reliance on RS-232 is ridiculous. From your description in the OP I personally wouldn’t recommend Vera to you as you state that you are interested in somewhat complex scene creation. Sure you can do anything with Vera you can do on HS… IF (IF’s aren’t something Vera is good with) you are a programmer and are willing to do most of it yourself.

10

But you do spend a lot of time on the MCV forums? or you have Google alerts set up or something similar for the term Homeseer. If its good enough for Mom, its good enough for me :wink:
There are people here with little to no programming experience or even comfort level and they are still able to get Vera to do what they want with the help of the forum and copy/pasting Lua code.

Low cost and low power were the key ingredients in my choice, there is little to no chance that I could get wife approval for HS the way they structure the packages. Also licenses aren’t transferable, while I can sell my Vera no problem.

11

Was directed at the OP and wasn’t meant to be funny or slam anyone else. Just meant that if the OP is thinking of switching to Vera because HS takes ‘too much time’ to learn, he’s in for a big surprise with Vera. It’s by far the most awkward system I’ve ever used in almost 2 decades of HA.
S-F hit the nail on the head I think.

relax Shady, like I said above, wasn’t meant against anyone so calm down.

12

Thanks (sincerely) to Frunple and S-F for the perspective on Homeseer. Lots of good information.

13

allow the opinion of a novice in there, a few months and at least $ 10k of investment, including cameras, vera system, sqblaster, redeye, etc… I chose vera because do not have licenses to pay, and the number of users growing and sure have found this forum.
I am a programmer but business languages, then I am trying make my system all with minimum possible without customization or programming codes, using myself the UI, and believe is possible, today I have installed a piece of my sonos system and following a post I had success, anyone with a little of computer knowledge would have achieved.
Concluding: vera system is not so hard for dummies or common users, but I think a better interface must be in the new versions soon.

Cheers for all.

14

There were people reporting to running it on Wine with a number of issues; however, the preferred alternative was EXSi VM. Homeseer 3 it reported by HS to be native Linux, WIN but not much coming out and this has been coming for a number of years when currently no expected delivery date. Original Beta testing was projected to be end of 2012 and then early 2013 but recent reports indicate previous statement. I raised DSC issue a long time ago with HS and the response was why would we do that when we already have this… Go figure.

Even though it is based on old designs, it is rock solid, flexible and for me it was extremely simple other than one time not reading something correctly whilst deploying Google Latitude. For me the change of business and I did not want the overheads of the servers was the driver and not the Product. But as I previously stated, it was a slow transition and I have not regretted. But today, I just re-installed HS2PRO for the sake of it… Plug in a Zwave USB and set up as a secondary controller which is the reverse of the transition to Vera. It is all fun!

15

How open is HS these days? At the time, I found their prices, license model and attitude to 3rd party developers somewhat off-putting; my reason for choosing Vera. Is it now possible to freely develop and distribute plug-ins and mobile apps for HS? Also curious about device support. According to a friend who used both Vera and HS, there’s still a fair few devices that don’t work well on HS, though that was a while ago (he switched to Vera because of that).

16

No change. You could always dev and share via forum. I never had a problem with device support and there were quick with updates to Aeon lab sensors etc but I haven’t kept up to date and regionally away from where must new devices are being releases. There are quite a few post recently worried about HS3 transition especially from developers and the lack of information coming their way.

AFAIK there was only ever very limited mobile apps - theirs and one other. Both cheap but the plugin for Homeseer wasn’t. Very flexible but not user friendly designed like yours.

17

Yes. This is Very true. One MAJOR advantage Vera has. The mobile counterparts are great for Vera.

18

Oh, and Vera never stops for no reason? No current HA solution, with the possible exception of some of the custom high-end closed systems, is reliable enough if the use is “vital”. I would never trust my home security, for example, to Vera (or HS). Interfacing Vera to a reliable, commercial security system is one thing. Trusting Vera for primary security is crazy.

In industrial automation, the real engines are Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) which are designed to just keep running and, if power is interrupted, bring themselves back up and resume operations. The user interfaces may be PC-based but the engines rarely are.

Not necessarily true but those that do use a PC-based hardware platform are typically running industrial versions of the OS; either Windows Embedded or (more likely) an embedded Linux distro.

Vera is a consumer version of a PLC. PCs, iPhones and Androids can give you great user interfaces but Vera will keep it all running when they are switched off, out of range or out of battery. Just my ?0.02'[sup]th[/sup]

Calling Vera a consumer version of a PLC may be accurate from a functional point of view but certainly not from a quality point of view. The hardware may be somewhat close to industrial quality (and that’s a stretch) but the software wouldn’t pass SQA for a cheap clone PLC. Nowhere near reliable enough for industrial use.

19

@Frunple I thought you were funny too, no worries. I liked the Most Interesting Man in the World sort of comment, “I don’t always use Vera, but when I do I give it to my Mom”. Veras and iPhones are now Mom tech :slight_smile:

20

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