I’m just about feed up with my Veralite. I usually have to power it down every few days, reboot would do it, to reset the Zwave controller, I’ve had it loose part of the program and have had to do several restore and it send something to the Evolve dimmers perodically that locks them up, well at least Evolve blames Veralite.
So I’m wondering if I should just dump it and move to Homeseer which I believe has more resources to help a buyer of our home to get support from.
Running UI5, 1.5.622.
[quote=“Timon, post:1, topic:186281”]I’m just about feed up with my Veralite. I usually have to power it down every few days, reboot would do it, to reset the Zwave controller, I’ve had it loose part of the program and have had to do several restore and it send something to the Evolve dimmers perodically that locks them up, well at least Evolve blames Veralite.
So I’m wondering if I should just dump it and move to Homeseer which I believe has more resources to help a buyer of our home to get support from.
Running UI5, 1.5.622.[/quote]
I looked into it… downloaded the trial, bought a 40.00 z-wave stick from amazon (since returned it) and after some playing around I decided it wasn’t for me. I too had alot of wierd problems witch all turned out to be to many plugins on a VERAlite. People say they are willing to spend alot more money for a reliable device (myself included). But usually thins is coming from someone who bought the lowest end control vera has on the market (was also me). Bottom line I have since bought two edges, switched both my houses to EDGE and ui7. Before that I had to remove several plugins to test for a few weeks and that solved my problems.
I’m not sure what your problem was but mine was as follows.
I was getting reboots which means PLEG didn’t run a scene (first sign of a problem, open a door and light wouldn’t come on or something to that extent) Then it got so bad that vera wouldn’t even save the last data, so after a crash my multiswitches would be in a state that was 4 hours old or so.
This is one one questions, is grass greener on the orher side?
Maybe, maybe not.
Homeseer you need to be more specific what this is, software only, standard pro or on of the other platforms that is packaged as a complete unit etc as each path will be different to the end user.
The is also considerable difference in costs both in the initial outlay and reoccurring costs for apps which might make it easier or harder to justify your return of your investment.
Additional add-ons HS3 Touch are separate products at additional cost as was until recent them provide the remote connect to your HS3 server but this is now free.
No doubt, their support is normally very good, however their product development lifecycle is quite slow but they have released newer lower end solutions recently.
You may wish to review their forum and like Fibaro and Vera, there are problems too. HS3 has been out for a while now and there are still issues.
You best option is probably the same route as the previous post by integlikewhoa and use the trial and see if it is fit for purpose.
That’s always the problem, you don’t know what you’re getting into when looking to change systems.
I don’t have very many plugins and I if I remember correctly I had the same issues before adding them. I will say that several of the plugins I use should have been built in to the VL and not require plugins.
It wouldn’t be so bad if the darn ZWave chip wouldn’t keep locking up every few days requiring powering down every few days.
It would also be nice if the darn Evolve switches would not lock up. As I said Evolve says it’s the VL that doing something to the switches that locks them up. I said there shouldn’t be a way for a controller to lock them up but they insist it’s the VL. I guess that I should post another thread to see if other have had this problem.
So, since I have what seems to be a VL that has problems what issues might I run into if I switched to VeraEdge? At $149 the price isn’t bad. How much do I need to reprogram and typically how well do the following plugins transfer over?
Combination Switch
Virtual On/Off Switches
Program Logic Core
Program Logic Timer Switch
Program Logic Event Generator
At times I hate conundrums based around changing systems but then sometimes it’s fun.
[quote=“Timon, post:4, topic:186281”]Combination Switch
Virtual On/Off Switches
Program Logic Core
Program Logic Timer Switch
Program Logic Event Generator[/quote]
Are those the only plugins you are using on your Veralite? How many devices do you have?
Yep, that’s all. I’d love to add our electric meter but that requires a ZigBee interface and plugin which isn’t going to happen with Vera.
Under 40 devices but I’ve got another 20 or more to add since I have unconnected rooms.
Looks like you don’t loose anything with the Edge and it very nice to find it less expensive than the Lite.
[quote=“mrv777, post:5, topic:186281”][quote=“Timon, post:4, topic:186281”]Combination Switch
Virtual On/Off Switches
Program Logic Core
Program Logic Timer Switch
Program Logic Event Generator[/quote]
Are those the only plugins you are using on your Veralite? How many devices do you have?[/quote]
Also how many of each? And is that multiswitch or a bunch of individual virtual switches? Homeseer is free to try for 30 days using your computer and cost 250.00 just for the software. If you haven’t tried it I recommend you do. In that 30 day window I found out alot of info.
You can save memory by:
Each instance of these plugins uses a lot of memory, as does cameras. You need to be quite conservative on a Vera Lite!
I moved from the Vera Lite to the Vera Edge. After a week of letting tech support debug my Vera Edge, I can at least see the devices on my network now. Unfortunately, I can rarely communicate with any of them and all of my scenes are broken. I am currently trying to get back to UI5 on Vera Lite because I never had any issue other than some slowness, but the wizard forced me to update to the Beta UI7 firmware just to add Vera Lite back to my account!
At this point, I’m thinking I may move to the SmartThings hub and start over. I definitely would not recommend the Vera Edge.
The lite can be found for 99.00 on Amazon every other day. And I have bought 2 EDGE’s on amazon one for 136.00 and one for 139.00. Again some days I check and its 149.99 and somedays its 13o something.
It’s important to understand:
A Virtual Switch Plugin device uses as much memory (relatively) as a single PLEG device, as a single Multi-Switch.
So if you look at efficiency of using memory … the virtual switch is the lowest, then PLEG, and Multi-Switch is the most.
Depending on how much logic you put in your PLEG (the more logic the more memory efficient) if you put enough logic in PLEG, it can be more efficient than Multi-Switch.
If you want to be the most efficient … use Multi-Switch and LUA programming.
It’s sad that the Vera Lite has so little memory that you need to worry about it so much. It is also the main reason people have problems on this platform. The symptoms are varied … but the root cause is a lack of memory.
NOTE: Vera (and Vera Lite) can handle a LOT of Z-Wave devices … one additional Z-Wave device uses very little memory.
This is true in other cases … i.e. the Zone Devices from an Attached Alarm system are cheap. You only pay for the memory for a single Alarm system plugin device. You can tell if a device is efficient in it’s use of memory … If it has a controlling device (as seen from the advanced tab) it is memory efficient. Only the controlling device eats up a lot of memory.
[quote=“RichardTSchaefer, post:8, topic:186281”]You can save memory by:
Each instance of these plugins uses a lot of memory, as does cameras. You need to be quite conservative on a Vera Lite![/quote]
Actually I just did an inventory check on which were actually in use. Looks like I got rid of the Virtual Switch and only have one Combination that I think I can dump.
I use the PLTS for turning off lights in bathrooms after they’ve been on for 30 minutes. Those will be moved to motion sensors over time.
[quote=“Timon, post:12, topic:186281”][quote=“RichardTSchaefer, post:8, topic:186281”]You can save memory by:
Each instance of these plugins uses a lot of memory, as does cameras. You need to be quite conservative on a Vera Lite![/quote]
Actually I just did an inventory check on which were actually in use. Looks like I got rid of the Virtual Switch and only have one Combination that I think I can dump.
I use the PLTS for turning off lights in bathrooms after they’ve been on for 30 minutes. Those will be moved to motion sensors over time.[/quote]
PTLS is not needed so far for what you described. PLEG has built in timers you can use. It’s under triggers in the input devices. You can set a count down timer in there. That info can also be found the “PLEG BASICS” PDF user manual. That would also save you some room.
Richard can be more specific but the LITE only has 128mb of RAM. I think half of that or more is already preused by vera from the gate. So when you go to a Vera 3 or Vera Edge with 256Mb of RAM your actually more then tripling your avaiable RAM for plugins and devices. This gives you alot more head room then you might think. And for someone buying a VERA today where the Lite is 100 and EDGE is 135.00. They don’t know it but saving 35 or 40 dollars is only gonna make them hate Vera even more.
I believe that the less plugins you use the better. Many things can be programmed using the interface as well as a bit of luup. Keep it clean and lite and it will work better. I also believe in distributed control. For example let the thermostat own the schedule, and just tell it when you want to override it.
Although when the last UI7 upgrade would not take on my lite, and forced me to remove a couple of plugins just to make it work, I did begin to wonder about the whole thing. Personally I think it is very easy to overload the G and lite models.
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If you are looking for a ZigBee power meter, look at the Rainforest Eagle. It may be supported by your power company and there is a Vera plugin for it here on the forums!!! It reads your power meter via zigbee and communicates to vera via Wifi or ethernet.
As to you meter monitoring you could look at Rainforest Eagle and there is an plugin to support it with requirement of a distinct Zigbee.
Richard
I am running UI15 on a Vera3. Do the scenes created (in Automation)take more or less memory than having them on PLEG instead?
I can’t answer for sure … since I do not know Automation … but if it shows up as a Scene in Vera … these are pretty lightweight.
Richard he was referring to just creating a normal scene within Vera.
I tried the HomeSeer free trial for linux. I wasn’t a fan… Seems as the they had the plugins in needed but at a costly price… Just trying to make a light turn on and off with motion was a full page of instructions and I still couldn’t make it work. I did post in the forums and only got one response. I didn’t feel comfortable spending that much money on the HomeSeer part and not really having the help from the community.
I say try the Free Trial and see what you think.
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