Now that I’ve upgraded to a Vera 3 I’m wondering what to do with my Vera Lite – besides sell it on eBay I mean. I was thinking about possibly integrating it and offloading most of the ancillary functions to it, ping sensors, AutoVera, Home/Away detection, DSC alarm interface, Vera Alerts, EventWatcher, Arduino Gateway, etc., other than the things directly related to ZWave activity.
Does this make sense? How does one tie them together? I’ve seen people here talking about multiple Veras operating essentially as a single device but how does that work?
Thanks
John
you can do a lot with the 2nd bridged unit.
1: extend your Zwave network and improve its connection performance, reach places you cannot today or where you would have to add repeaters.
2: offload some of the plugins that are everyday workers, freeing up resources on the parent (iPhone Locator or Weather Underground come to mind)
3: you will still see all of the devices, be able to use scenes and PLEG from the parent to the child unit.
The only limitation is that you cannot see scenes on the child from the parent. You cannot see the parent’s devices, ext from the child.
I have this setup and can say it is nearly seamless, and despite warnings of delays crossing units, I don’t see it (both on the same LAN hardwired).
Something to think about, anyways.
[quote=“Bulldoglowell, post:2, topic:180905”]you can do a lot with the 2nd bridged unit.
1: extend your Zwave network and improve its connection performance, reach places you cannot today or where you would have to add repeaters.
2: offload some of the plugins that are everyday workers, freeing up resources on the parent (iPhone Locator or Weather Underground come to mind)
3: you will still see all of the devices, be able to use scenes and PLEG from the parent to the child unit.
The only limitation is that you cannot see scenes on the child from the parent. You cannot see the parent’s devices, ext from the child.
I have this setup and can say it is nearly seamless, and despite warnings of delays crossing units, I don’t see it (both on the same LAN hardwired).
Something to think about, anyways.[/quote]
Thanks. I think I’ll do that then, Right now I’m not have a reach problem but I’m planning some changes that might result in that.
How does one go about this?
I tried the instructions here but could not get it to work.
I contacted MCV and they did it for me in one business day.
[quote=“Bulldoglowell, post:4, topic:180905”]I tried the instructions here but could not get it to work.
I contacted MCV and they did it for me in one business day.[/quote]
Thanks. Here’s what I did in the sequence done:
- Unplugged the LAN from the current Vera 3 because the old Vera Lite had the same IP address
- Wrapped Vera Lite in aluminum foil to prevent any ZWave activity
- Logged on to Vera Lite
- Changed the IP address
- Reset the Z-Wave to Factory settings
- Rebooted Vera Lite
- Verified IP address change and no ZWave devices
- Discarded aluminum foil
- Deleted all the duplicated items that would cause trouble such as PLEGs
Now both Veras are on the same LAN, Vera Lite with nothing on it.
I went to the Wiki page you provided and I cannot see the Vera Lite in the list of uPnP devices from Vera 3 (interestingly I can see Vera 3 device in the uPnP list on Vera Lite )
So I guess the nest step is to refer the matter to Tech Support.
Thanks again
John
[quote=“clippermiami, post:5, topic:180905”][quote=“Bulldoglowell, post:4, topic:180905”]I tried the instructions here but could not get it to work.
I contacted MCV and they did it for me in one business day.[/quote]
Thanks. Here’s what I did in the sequence done:
- Unplugged the LAN from the current Vera 3 because the old Vera Lite had the same IP address
- Wrapped Vera Lite in aluminum foil to prevent any ZWave activity
- Logged on to Vera Lite
- Changed the IP address
- Reset the Z-Wave to Factory settings
- Rebooted Vera Lite
- Verified IP address change and no ZWave devices
- Discarded aluminum foil
- Deleted all the duplicated items that would cause trouble such as PLEGs
Now both Veras are on the same LAN, Vera Lite with nothing on it.
I went to the Wiki page you provided and I cannot see the Vera Lite in the list of uPnP devices from Vera 3 (interestingly I can see Vera 3 device in the uPnP list on Vera Lite )
So I guess the nest step is to refer the matter to Tech Support.
Thanks again
John[/quote]
yeah, can’t say i didn’t warn you!
this is straightforward, so you should be able to get it done in a day.
[quote=“Bulldoglowell, post:6, topic:180905”][quote=“clippermiami, post:5, topic:180905”][quote=“Bulldoglowell, post:4, topic:180905”]I tried the instructions here but could not get it to work.
I contacted MCV and they did it for me in one business day.[/quote]
Thanks. Here’s what I did in the sequence done:
- Unplugged the LAN from the current Vera 3 because the old Vera Lite had the same IP address
- Wrapped Vera Lite in aluminum foil to prevent any ZWave activity
- Logged on to Vera Lite
- Changed the IP address
- Reset the Z-Wave to Factory settings
- Rebooted Vera Lite
- Verified IP address change and no ZWave devices
- Discarded aluminum foil
- Deleted all the duplicated items that would cause trouble such as PLEGs
Now both Veras are on the same LAN, Vera Lite with nothing on it.
I went to the Wiki page you provided and I cannot see the Vera Lite in the list of uPnP devices from Vera 3 (interestingly I can see Vera 3 device in the uPnP list on Vera Lite )
So I guess the nest step is to refer the matter to Tech Support.
Thanks again
John[/quote]
yeah, can’t say i didn’t warn you!
this is straightforward, so you should be able to get it done in a day.[/quote]
Trying one more thing, power cycle the Vera Lite, uncheck the scan box on the Vera 3, recheck the box, wait 10 minutes and see what happens
I added a Hail Mary for you too…
That ACTUALLY worked (the Hail Mary might have played a role too, you never know )
I was able to see the device in the uPnP list and add it. When I restarted all of my PLEGs failed so I restarted both again and it looks OK now. So now we’ll see what i can do with it
I was just playing around with this now and I’m curious how it works. I though that the “master” Vera could see items on the secondary?
I added a Virtual Switch to the secondary and then went to the primary and tried to get the status of the VS in a PLEG but it doesn’t show up anywhere. I’ve restarted both Veras but I only ever see the VERA itself when I try to select a device, not the VS. Did it not configure properly?
It should. If the master didn’t have the plugin already installed for any child/slave devices…it should have auto installed it (causing multiple reboots for adding new devices new plugins).
Both the master and the secondary already had the Plugin installed so I just created an additional instance on the secondary. But the master can’t see it for some reason.
Down’t forget … to do the Vera 2 Step …
Reload Vera AND refresh the browser.
[quote=“RichardTSchaefer, post:14, topic:180905”]Down’t forget … to do the Vera 2 Step …
Reload Vera AND refresh the browser.[/quote]
Richard, I thought I did but I’ll do it again.
Can you please clarify this because I’m not sure what you mean here?
Installing a plugin on the child will not cause the plugin to be added to the parent.
I have two homes with bridged units. My main house has three child units bridged to the primary vera controller. Nowhere does the plugin on the child get installed on the parent.
That being said, I do have a few apps installed on the parent and child like Day/Night and PLEG and it is all working, but I installed them this way.
All devices on the slave will show on the master.
If any devices are plugins, those plugins will be installed on the master if they don’t already exist. The logic will run on the slave but for the device/buttons/json to be controllable on the parent…the plugin must be installed.
I think you may want to check that out.
Either that’s not correct or my system works differently from the rest.
My Ademco AD2USB plugin is installed on the child, and is not on the parent. It is controllable and visible at the parent or the child.
Same thing with my Garage Door apps installed on children, EtherRain8, WeatherUnderground, HomeWave push notifications and other apps.
That’s one of the the benefits of bridging and distributing this heavy lifting onto the children.
I’ve seen some plugins (like for me, SysMon) that doesn’t bridge over…so it’s not 100%…just 90% in my experieince.
Ones that I know that when installed on the slave, will isntall on the master:
- combination switch
- virtual switch
- Wake Up Alarm
- Simple alarm
- PLEG/PLC/PLTS
Now I see what you mean. Apps that need access across the network will need to be on the parent. But in that case, I would not install it on the child.
For me, your example of system monitor bridges over, but it will report the child sys info displayed at the parent level which is what I would expect. If I needed to look at the parent, I need to install it at the parent. (since I have bridged units I don’t have memory problems and don’t monitor that anymore).
PLEG bridges over, but it cannot control at the parent level that instance sees the child because the children cannot see the devices of the parent, so that gets installed at the Parent. Though, I have it on a child that does some of our automation.
So, the idea is to install heady apps that can do a lot of work on the child machine on the child machine, e.g. weather underground, iPhone locator, Ping Sensors, Garage Door, Virtual Switches, Variable Container and many others.