So I have owned my VeraLight since Dec 2013. Today, my z-wave chip bit the dust. With all the UI7 non-sense going on right now, is it worth replacing the unit with another Vera unit? Has anyone found a better option for Zwave devices? Of course I want the perks of outside access (cell phone, remote computer) with out having to pay for the gateway. I already have remote access to my entire computer network so I don’t need a company to host servers for me. My main worry is getting my Vista ad2usb working again because I have the entire house wired with sensors on my Vista 20P.
Being a Vera forum, you’re mostly going to get Vera recommendations. The question is, how happy were you with Vera before the failure?
If you were extremely satisfied, then get a similar Vera and restore from backup. Bam! You’re right back to being extremely satisfied for a hundred bucks.
If you’re willing to start over with a new Vera, then get the Edge and start rebuilding. Unfortunately, you won;t be able to just restore and go.
If you were rather dissatisfied with Vera and need an alternative, I can’t really make a recommendation. There has been some recent chatter about how great Homeseer is. You could try that, they even offer a free trial of the software. Unfortunately, you’ve missed their semi-annual 50% off sale.
I wasn’t extremely unhappy with vera until I upgraded to UI7. I’ve also seen that our developers aren’t treated as well as they should be and if I had to predict the future, I’d have to say less and less plugins will be made in the coming years. UI7 has been a pain since my first upgrade and the last two firmware versions seem to break more and more things.
I’m looking for advice from others that have started their research for a new alternative due to recent UI7 woes.
For reference, vera support diagnosed my problem as bad nand sections and said my device was unrecoverable.
homeseer. It is more expensive by a lot depending on your set up. IF, I could go back I probably would have gone the homeseer route with my main home and vera for our cabin (since it has so few devices).
I have been looking and playing with Homeseer. They do have issues however it seems more stable for what I am doing. (General security interface with a concord 4 system including many wireless devices.) The only reason I don’t switch is I have FINALLY got vera functional with my expansive home system. Also, it just was a little hard to plop down the cash for the set up I would want with homeseer (software running on one of their devices or an inexpensive lap top and you are close to 800-1k. It can be done for cheaper)
If vera burns up in a ball of fire, I will go with homeseer next go around for our house and keep vera running things at the family retreat.
Hit their forums and read. I would suggest searching for threads that have devices similar to yours. This will give you a heads up on what COULD go wrong.
If it were me, I would buy a Vera Lite from Amazon and run UI5 on it. About $105 right now. That would get me back to running quickly. I am still looking for something better. It might be OpenHab with the Vera as the Z-Wave controller. It just takes a lot of time that I don’t have.
There is some merit to the Vera with UI5 option. This is how I’m running my current Vera system. I never did switch to UI7 but I’m starting to outgrow my controller capabilities.
I took advantage of the HomeSeer sale and purchased the windows software. I’m still working on building it but so far I am happy. HomeSeer is a very robust system and isn’t limited by underpowered hardware.
It was only after I accepted the fact that I’d outgrown my VeraLite, threw money at a Vera3, and migrated everything over did my stability issues start to go away. Over time, I ended up with a stable, and responsive system.
I can now afford to run the latest firmware, and remain stable. After reading all the fixes Vera puts in these firmware updates, it seems counter productive to remain on the old firmware, old UI (UI5), and watch the world kinda pass you by…
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