Vera 3 or Vera Lite? Performance wise

Community Playground General Discussions
#1

Hey …i wanted to know what exactly is the difference between Vera 3 & Vera Lite? In terms of performance.

I am aware of the fact that Vera 3 has better DDR2 Memory, 2USB, 4 WAN, 1LAN, etc…And also the fact it can control upto 200 devices.

My purpose of use will be of Basic Home Lighting Automation using Fibaro Modules controlling through iPhone/Samsung S4 or Handheld remote. The maximum number of devices wont be more than 50.

Does the performance of both the devices really make a difference? Is Vera Lite better option considering the cost factor?

#2

I would have thought that the price differential is really not a consideration in a large system… the modules will cost you a lot more than the Vera.

If you don’t need the WiFi or router capability, then Lite would seem to fit the bill.

I have a medium-sized system (with a fair number of Fibaro modules giving no problems per your other recent post - see below for my configuration.). Most of my Z-Wave devices are on just one of my Vera Lites, and I have a large number of scenes and some fairly large plugins (dataMine, log file, weather, …) and serial control of a Denon receiver. Also bridged this to another of the Veras.

All runs just fine with minimal delay in device operation.

#3

Though you said you already understodd, here is a hardware comparison of the units.

I’ve seen @RichardTSchaefer post this several times

and I’d have to agree with his numbers. So, calculate your needs. [tt](Number of devices + Number of Plugins) X 4MB plus 20% for scenes and logic = Approximate Memory requirement.[/tt]

#4

[quote=“Z-Waver, post:3, topic:175287”]I’ve seen @RichardTSchaefer post this several times

and I’d have to agree with his numbers. So, calculate your needs. [tt](Number of devices + Number of Plugins) X 4MB plus 20% for scenes and logic = Approximate Memory requirement.[/tt][/quote]

Is that official? Based on 64Mb you would have only 13/14 nodes/devices? Where as, if I look at my Veralite, I have way more than that installed and running ? Is he talking about concurrency, I would be surprised if RAM memory was held indefinitely by every device you installed, it would suggest a very inefficient system?

#5

I would not agree to the average app size being 4 mb. Also do not confuse apps and devices… I have just pushed 26 common apps on to a system which relates to 65 devices which took 39 mb. @RTS is providing some conservative figures and if you think you can stay within logic that presents the Vera-lite will work fine for most.

#6

The numbers I had was with memory observations starting with a new system and adding devices. Also from an earlier release … 1.5.408

But the numbers do not grow linearly. My current model has changed … (Since I do not have the source code … I am only guessing …)

A stack for a thread would use up a lot of memory.
Startup runs an init job on all devices … causing a thread to be activated for each … causing the initial memory growth.
Each device can have up to two threads. I believe that they have a thread pool that limits the global number of active threads … causing the memory to be non linear.

#7

Richard, the previous comment switched direction from your reference about apps install to node (or devices) which the correlation is not the same. Agree it is not linear growth for devices.

#8

Note I always excluded Controlled devices … because the memory seems to be associated with the Parent devices. My current model is that the significant amounts of memory are currently used by two things … the LUA context and thread stacks, and the latter is the dominant factor.

However Z-Wave devices do seem to show the memory growth … even though they are controlled by the internal Z-Wave device. But I believe that is because the large number of Jobs (threads) for the initialization of these devices.