Setting vera by replicating from a primary controller?

Community Playground General Discussions
1

I want to replace my current primary controller, a leviton RZCPG, with vera (once it arrives…). Is there a short cut way where I can transfer the primary controller role from the leviton to Vera so that I don’t have to reset and add each device to Vera?

What’s the recommended procedure when adding a Vera to an existing zwave network?

Thanks,
P.K.

2

Just follow the instructions. It is very simple and no, you don’t have to re-add each device on Vera. You just copy your network to Vera.

On the other hand, I chose to use Vera’s USB stick as a secondary and am using Inrematic HA07 as my primary controller which is extremely reliable (unlike Vera so far). So in case Vera crashes, I do not have to reset my entire network again.

It would be nice to be able to switch the primary/secondary role between third party and Vera at will. I still did not get satisfactory answer if that could be done.

3

Thanks for the info. I am looking at this page:
[url=http://wiki.micasaverde.com/index.php/ZWave_Options]http://wiki.micasaverde.com/index.php/ZWave_Options[/url]

Seems like there is no way to copy then take over the primary controller role, so I am stuck?

I always thought that the dongle is the zwave (primary) controller, so even if vera crashes, the network information is still good? Or is that is not the case? I am not looking forward to rebuilding my network over and over !!

4

Yes, the dongle is the primary controller and the network info stays there unless it is reset itself. It is still a pain to have to re-add and configure your devices/scenes in vera though… (like adding rooms and assigning devices to those rooms and then adding scenes to those rooms). Now technically vera has a backup and restore function but I have not used that yet… The one time I had to redo my network it was because things were acting funny and I didn’t trust the backed-up information.

5

Correct, the dongle stores the list of the Z-Wave devices in the network. And Vera’s own database stores the rooms, device settings, etc. Vera’s backup/restore features work fine (Advanced, Backup), so you can restore the settings.

You can take over the primary controller. The controller that is currently primary needs to do a ‘controller shift’. Vera supports both (a) giving another controller primary, and (b) accepting primary from another controller. To have Vera give another controller primary, choose Devices, Z-Wave options, and controller shift. To have become primary, tell whatever is your current primary to initiate a controller shift (Zensys’s official term), or whatever they call it if they came up with their own name.