Server Busy for 30 seconds or more makes the system nonresponsive…what ties it up?
I would like to hear from some users as to the reliability of the vera. The more I add on to the system the more unpredictable it gets. I need a system that when you hit the switch to activate a scene will do what is supposed to 99 percent of the time. Is anyone getting that kind of reliability out of this system? I am tempted to just leave it as a lighting controller and nothing else…it seems to be good at that.
Right now I want to hear from the users where everything works perfect 99 percent of the time…what plugins are you using in addition to the basic lighting controller and what firmware are you running.
Give me some feedback please!
Regards
Tim
currently I am using the ZWave network, SQ Remote plugin, Panasonic Camera plug in, and a DSC security plugin.
I probably do not have as many Z Wave products as you do in your network, but I do find Vera 2 to be somewhat reliable a majority of the time; taking into account that I have only had my Vera since about mid January so far it seems o’kay. (i hope that it stays that way!!!) lol.
You can see what I have so far in my signature, not a lot but its a start. I am curious as to how many nodes that you have as well, so that I can be on the lookout for any potential problems and so that I can have a heads up on possible problems before my Z Wave Network gets too large for Vera to handle.
I am not using any plugins, i tried to use the Generic IP Cam Plugin/Panasonic Camera plugin/no Plugin for my 4Channel Security Cam DVR and it won’t work with Vera (even tho, the ipadd:port/url is correct and works in my browser yada, yada.)
The main problem that I have with Vera is that compared to say an HS2 Pro from Homeseer it seems that Vera is incapable of more advanced Home Automation Scenes through the GUI as there are a lot of logical conditional statements that the the GUI is missing e.g. If/And/Or/Then/in addition to/minus to… running more then one scene at the same time and stopping a scene that has already been started. I still have yet to actually learn LUA tho and I have read just about every post on this Forum (i have spent countless hours just digging away at past and ongoing posts trying to learn and pick up as much as possible), and from what I have read a lot of things that I wish that Vera could do is indeed possible through LUA (not everything, but most). Crestron is to BMW, as Homeseer is to Cadillac, and Vera is a Honda. I am looking forward on graduating to a BMW from my Honda (Vera) in a year or two when I am ready and when I have learned as much as possible with Vera.
I’ve been using a Vera2 for about a year now. On the original user interface build that came installed on the unit (UI2) I was very pleased. Overall a very stable platform.
I “upgraded” to UI4 about 10 days ago and have been very frustrated. Scenes don’t execute correctly, changes don’t save sometimes, and notifications stopped working. Since I upgraded, my opinion of the system has soured.
UI2 was stable, but was… “clumsy” in its design, aestheticly. UI4 is much better in visual design, but much less stable, at least in my experience.
If you use Vera with UI2, I’d say it is a stable platform. With UI4 - completely unacceptable. My opinion, of course.
Have had my Vera 1 for a long time now and have had reliability issues in the past. I have a medium size ZWave network currently (3 Thermostats, 12 light switches, 10 outlets, and HSM-100) with a small number of scenes (3 or 4 that run daily, and a couple of more that are triggered by various events, plus holiday scenes and vacation scenes).
My experience is that Vera has been essentially been rock solid for about 8 to 10 months now even with UI4 and with exceptions of upgrades it has been online and running reliably during that entire time.
Currently I have twenty dimmers, two Leviton Scene controller, and three Leviton Zone controllers. The leviton hardware is configured by a Leviton Remote which remains Master to the system. I love the Leviton hardware…works perfect every time!
The primary purpose of the Vera is to allow IPad control to the lights using Sq Remote. It works great on the IPad but has connection issues on the IPhone. When I am just running Vera for lights everything worked perfect but now thatI am adding on the Server Busy becomes a problem…you cannot control lights when the Server Busy indicator is on. This causes the lights to be unpredictable which I can’t have.
So I am wondering…all these great add ons for Vera, are they ever tested to see if they are tying up the system?
Does Vera have the ability to multi task???
It appears not, but I need to hear from all you heros that know this little gizmo better than I.
I really appreciate the feed back…keep it coming.
I want to know what the limits of this device are. I am not knocking it, just want to understand it.
Regards
Tim Alls
AllSeas Yachts
I have been a user/dealer of Vera since Jan of this year. I’m overall very pleased with it. Does it have it’s issues? Yes. Is it a learning curve? Yes. Does it do a lot more than what we tend to use it for? Yes. Does it have it’s limitations? Just like everything else, of course. You can’t compare Vera to Homeseer. One is 250.00 complete & the other starts at $219.95 (without hardware controller) to over $2700.00.
Can it multitask? I would say yes for two reasons. One it’s running Linux a true multitasking OS. Two I have scenes running throughout the day. I have it controlling two powerhead pumps in my 90Gal reef tank. Vera turns them on and off every 20sec opposite of each other. This creates a wave in my tank to simulate water current in nature. It does this from 4:00pm to 2:00am everyday. I have not seen any slow down what so ever & I still have complete control of Vera even on my Android phone using Home Buddy.
Thanks for the feedback.
I know that is has limitations…like I said I am not knocking it I am trying to figure out the best configuration. I have to deal with cranky wives that want the light switches to work everytime you hit the button! They don’t want to know why…
So I am thinking…because I need such perfect performance why not have one Vera that does nothing but lights and have a second Vera take care of cameras, security, and notification.
Again…here is the issue…Vera comes up occasionally with the Server is Busy message for 30 seconds or more. While its busy nothing works. Thats where I am looking for you Hero Members to help me out with feedback. What makes it go offline for such a loing period.
good luck pinning it down to one issue, but for sure workload matters, theres no getting around the fact that a vera with nothing but a few lights on it runs like lightning, but as you add devices and jobs the oddities and occasional slowdowns ranging from 30 seconds to a couple minutes can begin to occur, I have had this kind of thing many times though (knocking on wood!) since upgrading to 1183 i havn’t had this (max delays about 3 secs), I am also aware that others have had periods of stability on other versions and this version introduced delays to them, it’s weird science my brothers ???