Using Rely Triggers from URC (type) controls

Community Playground General Discussions
1

I have seen a lot of post regarding control of IR devices and macros with Vera, and it seems IR control seems to be pretty difficult to maintain. I am a custom installer and have found that using a completely touchscreen device as a universal remote control gets old after about a week, I also know that most control/lighting solutions (AMX, Crestron, Lutron etc) are extremely expensive which is what got me interested in MCV. Anyways, I found that using inexpensive URC brand remotes (MX450 is $250) to trigger a relay/contact in the Vera to trigger a screen would be a comparatively easy and inexpensive way to get complete control of a home. For instance, press “Theater ON” button and the remote: the remote controls all of the IR devices (Projector, receiver, etc) and closes a contact on the Vera. When this contact is closed, Vera initiates a screen dimming the lights and setting the thermostat. I am new to Vera, and have not had a chance to play with this (just ordered what I think I would need to make this work)…any ideas regarding if/why this would or wouldnt work? Thanks for the advice in advance

Courtenay Blair
www.JIRAHHOME.com

2

There are some Z-wave contact closure devices you could use as an “input” to Vera, but I would suggest plugging a USB2Serial adapter into Vera’s USB port and then adding a circuit to take inputs and send them into Vera via serial and handle them in a LUA plugin. Another option would be to use a circuit to take the inputs and call the appropriate Vera URLs (i.e. use something like an Arduino or Ethernet experimenter board to monitor your contact closures and then call Vera over ethernet). This is a relatively inexpensive way (<$100) to get nearly as many inputs as you would want.

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This might be of help to you:

http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,7589.0.html

4

thanks for both replies. im going to look into them this weekend