Veralite : questions before buying

Community Playground Getting Started & Initial Setup
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Hello,

I’m about to buy a Veralite, but I have a few questions before I actually do it :slight_smile: I of course tried to search, found some partial answers to what I’m trying to do, but still a bit puzzled about how exactly doing it.

My goal for now is to use the Veralite to simulate a presence at home while I’m away. Maybe I’ll go further than that later, but I’ll stick to that for now. I don’t know Lua yet, but since I’m a programmer, that should not be a problem for very long :wink:

What I want to do : when I leave the house, use a switch of some sort to tell the Veralite I’m away. Then have the Vera run a script continuously or regularly (every hour for example), and have it turn on/off more or less randomly (start time and duration) some lights or a radio (probably based on the ambient luminosity, i.e. radio during day, lights during night). And stop the script when I come back.

My main problem is finding what module to use to tell the Vera I’m away or back home. I was thinking of a physical switch I would turn on or off, or some device I would keep on me (telling the Vera to do something if it can’t detect it), or use a virtual switch that would be turned on or off through the use of a small remote.

After some search, I did not find anything that would be usable in the first or second case, so I’ll probably try the third scenario.

The other issue I’m having is figuring how I turn back these objects to normal use when I’m back, and finding a way to have an immediate feedback from the Vera, telling me “I acknowledged your leaving, script starting now”, or something, if you catch my drift. But that’s probably just because I’m not yet aware of everything I’ll be able to do with it.

Am I on the right track here (remote + virtual switch), or am I missing something ? To go a little further, do we have multi-state virtual switches (for example, if I want to make a single scenario that would do different things, depending on states like : at home, at home but sleeping, away for the day, or away for a long time, like vacation) ?

Another problem is I can’t find any simple luminosity module. All I can find is multi-purpose modules (movement, light, temperatures, etc.). Is there a simple luminosity module somewhere ?

And finally, it might be a bit off-topic, but I’m thinking about using a Chumby Internet radio (to turn on or off in said scripts or scenarios) : anyone knows if this thing can accept http (or such) requests to go further than just turn on or off its power ?

Anyway, any help about what I’m trying to do here would be greatly appreciated :slight_smile: It’s a bit tough to find the information you need, all the more when you don’t even have the Veralite yet …

Thanks in advance.

Regards.

PS : btw, I’m french (you might have guessed by my writing, maybe :smiley: ), so I might not have access to all existing zwave modules, so the simpler the solution, the better, I’d say :wink:

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Hi Skyfire76

Last things first: fantastic English, just WISH my French was anywhere near that!

There shouldn’t be any need to learn Lua programming for the time being. Take a look at this post, and the associated thread:
http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,12952.msg95548.html#msg95548

which shows that there is already a (free) plugin to simulate presence whilst away.

Certainly, almost any physical or virtual device may be used to trigger a change of state indicating whether you’re IN or OUT.

Hope this helps.

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[quote=“akbooer, post:2, topic:174177”]Hi Skyfire76

Last things first: fantastic English, just WISH my French was anywhere near that![/quote]

Lol, thank you :slight_smile: Wish I had a bit more vocabulary, though :wink:

There shouldn't be any need to learn Lua programming for the time being. Take a look at this post, and the associated thread: [url=http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,12952.msg95548.html#msg95548]http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,12952.msg95548.html#msg95548 [/url] which shows that there is already a (free) plugin to simulate presence whilst away.

Certainly, almost any physical or virtual device may be used to trigger a change of state indicating whether you’re IN or OUT.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, that was very useful. I’ll certainly need to have a look at this (when I do have the Veralite, that is :wink: ). Are such plugins completly open (meaning, can I adapt them to my need ?), or are they somewhat compiled and/or encrypted and so only usable as provided ?

As I said, being a programmer, I already have a certain number of ideas I’d like to implement, depending on what Lua allows or not. But I’ll start simple anyway.

So I’ll probably start with a small remote, a few on/off modules and if possible a luminosity sensor. Then I’ll see what I can come up with :smiley:

Anyway, thanks again for the answer :slight_smile:

Regards.

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You can only change plugins. The internals of Vera are not available.
You can modify the Web View … if you are a JavaScript hacker!

Vera has options to encrypt the plugin source … I do not know if it works … since I have never seen any encrypted plugins.

Some developers may obfuscate some of their code. Also, I have not seen that in practice.

In general you can locally modify it. Most have copyrights and/or GNU licenses on the code.
So you need to pay attention to those if you try to redistribute any changes.

MCV has many developers in France … Not sure where … So you might be able to develop some local support channels.

We can all use more good programmers! Bienvenue!

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Some other forum members sites/blogs coming out of I believe France.

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Richard, I don’t intend to hack anything, lol, just wanted to know if the plugins code is available to see and modify to suit my needs (and of course, not redistribute it in such a case …).

Brientim, thanks, I’ll have a look at these :slight_smile:

Regards.

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As the Chumby ships, no, that stuff is disabled. But it’s relatively easy to enable SSH on it, and from there you can turn on its web server, and then you have what you want. To my knowledge, no one has trodden that path to control Vera (my Chumby is just a clock 100% of the time). Getting the Chumby GUI to interact with your LAN is harder than you think, because of that intervening Flash dashboard layer.

The epicentre of discussion about Chumby homebrew is over on the Chumby forum (which is moving soon, so that link may become bad). See if you’re up to the task. I decided that I wasn’t.

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@Skyfire76
Maybe a language thing … but even in the English community people are split about weather Hack has a positive or negative connotation.

I consider myself a professional software developer/architect yet I hack away at MCV software (i.e. I make changes to the original software product).

There are plenty of folks to help you through the learning curve, myself included … many here have helped me …

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Futzle, thanks, that was pretty informative (to clarify, my idea was not to control the Veral with Chumby, but the reverse) :slight_smile:

Richard, yep, I hear you. As I said, I’ll start simple anyway, then, when I’m comfortable with the Vera, I’ll see if I need to go further. Hopefully not, as I’d rather not spend too much time doing this :smiley:

Working and scripting on Unix daily for my job, that should be an advantage, though :wink:

Regards.

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Just FYI, package (Veralite + 2 on/off modules + Aeon Labs 4in1 sensor + Aeon Labs 4 buttons mini remote + light bulb socket on/off module + Chumby radio) received last friday, and I’m already making good progress :slight_smile:

Actually, I spent most of the time preparing the Chumby : I already made a pretty satisfying cgi script allowing me to start a web radio, set the volume, and turn that everything off a little later through http requests, and I’m able to send the corresponding http requests in Lua on the Veralite :smiley:

I have, of course :wink: , a few questions :

  • unable to have the 4in1 sensor register correctly with the Veralite (fails at Sending User Information, or something). From what I saw in the forums, it looks like I need a beta firmware of the Veralite to be able to use this module ? Ticket opened with the support yesterday …

  • for my script, and to make delays (start time and on time), I have 2 solutions : either use a pause (through a system call to “sleep”) or use the call_delay or call_timer functions. Is there a preferred method here ?

  • I’m a bit puzzled by the way the light bulb socket works. I also have a physical wall switch “attached” to that, so as long as it is on, I have no trouble commanding the light with zwave. That’s logical so far :slight_smile: … The problem is the following : if I turn off the physical switch, when I turn it back on, the socket module remains off, and I have to use zwave commands to turn it back on. I wanted to be able to use it normally when I’m home, and have it programmed when I’m away, but it looks like it’s impossible. Not sure if I’m very clear here, but anyone knows a way to put the socket module on by default when I turn on the physical wall switch ?

That’s all for now. From what I saw, I’ll be able to do what I wanted without too much scripting (I already have the core of the script, just need to add some randomness, and link that with the luminosity sensor when it will work) …

Regards.

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Use call_delay or call_timer (doesn’t matter which). Don’t use sleep. The trouble with sleep is that it pauses the entire scene engine, so if you have any other scenes, they won’t operate.

- I'm a bit puzzled by the way the light bulb socket works. I also have a physical wall switch "attached" to that, so as long as it is on, I have no trouble commanding the light with zwave. That's logical so far :) ... The problem is the following : if I turn off the physical switch, when I turn it back on, the socket module remains off, and I have to use zwave commands to turn it back on. I wanted to be able to use it normally when I'm home, and have it programmed when I'm away, but it looks like it's impossible. Not sure if I'm very clear here, but anyone knows a way to put the socket module on by default when I turn on the physical wall switch ?

It’s probably a bad idea to be turning off the Z-Wave module at the wall switch. Even when they are “off”, Z-Wave devices will forward packets destined for other Z-Wave devices in the network (the so-called Z-Wave Mesh). By denying power to the Z-Wave module you are putting holes in the mesh and compromising the ability of the whole network to send and receive messages. Z-Wave is not like, say, X-10 in this respect. You are expected to leave power connected to Z-Wave devices at all times.

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Use call_delay or call_timer (doesn't matter which). Don't use sleep. The trouble with sleep is that it pauses the entire scene engine, so if you have any other scenes, they won't operate.

Thanks, will do :slight_smile:

It's probably a bad idea to be turning off the Z-Wave module at the wall switch. Even when they are "off", Z-Wave devices will forward packets destined for other Z-Wave devices in the network (the so-called Z-Wave Mesh). By denying power to the Z-Wave module you are putting holes in the mesh and compromising the ability of the whole network to send and receive messages. Z-Wave is not like, say, X-10 in this respect. You are expected to leave power connected to Z-Wave devices at all times.

Copy that, that’s what I suspected :frowning:

Regards.