It appears to me that Vera may have been released somewhat prematurely. Reading thru the postings on this board one cannot help but to walk away with that impression. I myself have had my unit for a month and in that period have managed to have it up and running for about three days before it started acting up. To begin with it took a few days to get this box up and running as its so called self configuring promise failed to deliver. A tech support call later I had the Vera up and running so it seemed. I then started adding the Z-wave switches and dimmers and created simple scenes. I have intentionally kept things simple till I know my way around. I was somewhat impressed with the whole thing for about three days before Vera began to act possessed as lights started to go on and off at all hours, mind you everything worked fine for a couple of days and without any change to the scenes things started to act up. I have since upgraded the firmware and confirmed that the dongle I have has the correct firmware. So for those of you hopping that the new dongle is going to stabilize your network, well I wouldn’t bet on it. I can now log in locally and everything looks right while findvera.com reports “Communications Error” and of course nothing is working. I’m curious as to what the R&D cycle was on this product this is getting old “FAST”.
veyron4me,
I just received my new dongle yesterday and installed it at about 5-6pm. This is the first 24 hour period I have not had to power cycle the vera since I bought it in March. This alone is a very positive improvement. I just added the rest of my zwave devices around the house (I had kept it to the minimum necessary devices to run my timers for a few months). We shall see over the next couple of days what happens… but so far I am optimistic. Hopefully if MCV can get the major bugs out of the way they can start refining to make vera as stable as it should be.
[quote=“B0SST0N, post:2, topic:164842”]veyron4me,
I just received my new dongle yesterday and installed it at about 5-6pm. This is the first 24 hour period I have not had to power cycle the vera since I bought it in March. This alone is a very positive improvement. I just added the rest of my zwave devices around the house (I had kept it to the minimum necessary devices to run my timers for a few months). We shall see over the next couple of days what happens… but so far I am optimistic. Hopefully if MCV can get the major bugs out of the way they can start refining to make vera as stable as it should be.[/quote]
What is the version of your new dongle?
vera is reporting
Version: 2.78 L:1
on the advanced z-wave page, im not sure if that is what you are looking for. if not, where can i find it?
Yes, B0SST0N, that is your dongle version, and I believe 2.78 L:1 is the latest and greatest from MCV at this time.
Just a thought…when we all can not rely on our Vera and it seems to be clear that at least in 98% of all cases the root cause is the dongle. Wouldn’t it be good to think about another dongle? There are some more on the market.
btw…my new dongle has problems too. It stopped working five times in two weeks.
All,
in the midst of a lot of complaints, I just want to interject that my Vera works like a charm. I have the 2.48 dongle (which I understand is part of the recall - I am a bit reluctant to replace it reading about experiences with the cloning etc…), but I have never had any problems with my Z-Wave network, albeit I only have a Schlage lock and two Homeseer 3in1 sensors. The only Z-Wave “problem” I have had, was to set up the Schlage lock (I did not read the wiki page). After I read the wiki page, that worked on the first go as well.
The only complaints I have, is that the logic behind scenes/events/timers is hard to grasp and does not always seem consistent. I have the same feeling when it comes to what is logged as notifications/events on FindVera.com. These things could probably be better documented (and maybe also better thought through). Apart from a few nuisances with this and the logic/structure of the UI, Vera does what I need it to do (report who enters my vacation house, and report temperatures and any “unexpected” motion) very reliable and well.
Cheers
I’d like to second what EH has said here: I love my Vera, and she behaves very well overall. I, too, have a simple system (see my sig, below), and don’t demand much from Vera in terms of scenes. All the scenes execute as expected, give or take a missing (or 20-minute delayed) notification here and there, or occasional weird / unexpected behavior when I try setting up a ‘Test’ scene. I’ve posted about these ‘issues’ elsewhere and won’t beat a dead horse here.
I’m mostly thankful for MCV being so attentive to our complaints (and praise) and taking our suggestions to heart! What other company - ever - produces 7 new firmware revisions each week and releases 95-99% working beta updates weekly? Only MCV!
This is a breath of fresh air over, say, X10 who released one “working” version of each HA application and stopped there. (e.g. ActiveHome 1.42d was introduced in the mid 1990’s and remains the same to this day!!)
I would agree with comments regarding MCV energy in trying to produce a product that meets everyone’s expectations and going the extra mile to deliver.
I however, have had a much different experience over my past 10 months with Vera and also consider my needs quite simple. I do have a number of ZWave devices, but really only use Vera to turn lights on and off. I have 20 devices in total (3 controllers and 1 3 in 1 sensor, the remainder light and appliance switches/modules), which I will guess is an average network. Vera has not reliably run for more than a week or so over the past 10 months with various issues, mainly resulting in simple scenes to turn lights on and off at a given time not working properly. The core of this setup worked fine with an HA07 controller for months before I bought Vera and has not been as stable since I moved over to control using Vera. I have rebuilt my network probably about 6 times in the past 10 months because of various issues and continually need to monitor the system to ensure it works properly. I did not mind this experience in the beginning as I knew I was part of a Beta program and that is exactly what I expected.
Now that Vera is supposedly out of Beta I just want it to work reliably for me. I ma not making any major changes to my requirements or my ZWave network and I am using only devices supposedly supported, but still have issues at every new change. IMHO this is still a Beta product, and if it was stilled called this I would not complain as much as I do in the forums, but the Beta is supposedly over and I still experience Beta performance and reliability on the whole.
To end on a positive note, again MCV is pretty responsive to issues. Just wish at this stage for me they did not have to be :
I had a Vera earlier in this year and I sold it because I found it difficult setting up scenes and events and their were reliability issues as there are now. I went with Insteon and Indigo software since I use a Mac. I now also use a native Indigo iPhone app to control lights. I find that Indigo is easier to use in some ways but others it is difficult. There are also not alot of the Insteon devices that are not supported. I am now thinking of going back to Vera because of the upcoming iPhone app and the ability to get texts and email alerts with sensors. The plug in ability looks interesting also. During the last couple of weeks I found a GE wireless security system that has smoke detector,carbon monoxide,water, freeze sensors as add ons to the system. All of this can be monitored by the Alarm.com iPhone app. I talked to Frontpoint Security and they said that GE is adding zwave to the system by the end of the year. The downside is the cost, it costs $40 month for monitoring and the email and text interactivity with the iPhone app. My dilemma is which one to go with.
You hit the nail on the head Chimpware. I would be okay participating in beta evaluation assuming that I was made aware of that fact upfront. Frankly I feel duped. “It just works” is a tall order for a product that has hundreds of customer postings reporting various operational issues. Don’t get me wrong, I think the product and its concept are very intriguing but public perception can kill even the greatest ideas in its track if it fails to on its promise.
I really like MCV’s service. They respond nearly 24/7 and they have the base for a great product. I bought my Vera because I saw the potential of Z-Wave and the ease of use of the machine, although Z-Wave is not that popular in Europe and MCV doesn’t speak my language.
My demands are quite simple. I have 14 shutters to open and close daily and to close them a bit when the sun shines too much. I also have some switches for lightning the garden and to simulate presence while we are not at home. I also have an IP camera in front of my house, which I like to integrate in the system.
What did I get?
[ul][li]My first Vera hung up at least daily. The German distributor changed the hardware after MCV’s support didn’t find the reason. Thanks![/li][/ul]
[ul][li]Vera (or the dongle) produced zombie devices. For what reason ever. These 190 extra devices had to be managed by the system. That needed time and resources and showed me the limitation a box like this has. To send a command than took minutes in the best case. In some cases they were not executed at all.
As this should have been a problem of the dongle, I was, thanks to MCV and the distributor, one of the first to get the new dongle. Well, that meant to set up Vera again from scratch. 25 devices, 20 scenes, no fun.[/li][/ul]
[ul][li]This new dongle has new problems. The dongle is locking up approximately every 28 hours. Even, when it’s a single fate, it’s a problem and I do not have the feeling that the system is reliable.[/li][/ul]
[ul][li]The LUUP release came out. I was happy because MCV’s support often said to me this or that will come in the new release. It was Saturday morning, sitting on the terrace making the update. A shock to me. This release was not able to control my shutters. The comment of MCV was. A bug, sorry, we don’t have this European stuff here for testing. I had to go back to the prior release but than it turned out the restore mechanism is buggy too. So I had to set up the whole thing again from scratch.[/li][/ul]
[ul][li]One function I missed from the beginning. Vera is not able to close my shutters a bit, let’s say 50%, to protect against sunshine. Just on or off. The problem is not the device; they have the ability to do this…[/li][/ul]
[ul][li]I also have two remotes. A TrickleStar and a Merten 4-push-button. No Chance to use them with Vera[/li][/ul]
[ul][li]Same thing with my IP camera. No chance for integration.[/li][/ul]
To summarize, I believe in the concept of Z-Wave and Vera and I really appreciate MCV’s service.
But MCV is doing a kind of overselling. The bundle is not reliable, it is not that easy to use, you have to spend definitely more time with the product than they promise. Z-Wave might be standardized, but not all device work with all controllers, what is a question of implementation, yes, but I’m customer and user, not a developer!
That is my point huwu. I wasn’t planning on learning codes or spend an hour a day reporting a bug or two and reading the wiki hopping to run across some good news.
Sorry to rehash, but I think that I may have discovered something else today.
One should not enable the Insteon/Z-Wave Plugin if there is not an adapter installed. The InsteonJobHandler checks every second to see if the device is connected. This could contribute to lost zwave jobs and high cpu usage.
Vera is like most of Google’s projects being forever in beta state…
Vera is like most of Google’s projects being forever in beta state… :)[/quote]
That’s funny denix, I would have said the opposite, Google Apps stay in Beta forever, long after they are stable and well established, and Vera came out of Beta too soon.
How long it was out of Beta, like 2 weeks or so (before it went back to beta with .800) ?