Ingress is the game I’ve been playing for the last 18 months or so. Very much a social oriented game I’ve also managed to lose about 18 pounds and gotten in much better shape playing.
Think geocaching mixed with War or King of the Hill.
Check out the link and download it. Ingress is free (except for your time and possibly gas…)
… So after messing with the Vera for a couple of days and figuring out that I was not going to be able to get X10 working properly with my TI103 interface I broke down and ordered an Insteon PM from Amazon after a conversation I had with Doug Gregory from DKC Automation (a very helpful guy and a great site by the way. I’ll post a link in the sidebar when I get the chance, or you can just Google it)
I received the insteon modem and hooked it up successfully as far as I could tell. The logging mechanism on the Vera sucks balls so I was never very sure about what I was doing. Anyway, I added a couple of my devices and managed to get them to each turn off once and that was it. Couldn’t dim, wouldn’t turn back on unless I did it manually.
By this time I was pretty pissed off. It works fairly well for zwave but I only have a couple zwave devices right now and I have an existing Aeon Labs stick for my Homeseer computer for those.
I shipped my Vera 3 and the Insteon modem back to Amazon and have already gotten refunds for them. I’ll probably order a couple of zwave modules now and call it a day.
Overall the Vera 3 is a good idea but definitely not mature enough for a robust home automation system, at least not if you use a lot of diy stuff like a lot of people. If you are strictly zwave and don’t need a lot of events and intelligent decisions it’s not bad. I’d say for the beginner it’s probably even great but it’s frustrating for several reasons :
1. Lack of documentation and help files. The links to the are there in the interface but they are broken.
2. No support for a lot of existing automation hardware except for plugins (that you might or might not be able to access)
3. Tech support that won’t give you a clear answer or help. I was forced to go to an outside vendor for help with items. He’s great but I didn’t even buy the main product from him, just a lamp module (which I’m still using by the way.)
4. A backend in the cloud that is broken and doesn’t communicate well together.
There seems to be a growing community for the Vera and as it matures and grows I’m sure the how to’s and help files will improve but until then I’ll be sticking with Homeseer.
The move to its own computer has finally been accomplished. I’ve gotten Shadowscope up and running on a partially dedicated laptop instead of a VM now. I say partially because it also houses my home automation software. That’s more for ease of use because I’ll be somewhat integrating the two. Nothing on the surface, mainly just so I can get mobile notifications of new users, logins, etc.
The connection may not be the fastest initially because I currently have it sitting in my living room on WiFi until I finish configuration on everything. Once I put it back on a Wired connection things should be better.
You can still access the board via telnet port 23 at bbs.shadowscope.com or click the link at the top of the page to log in from here. If you have any issues please contact me via Hangouts or through the contact link on the sidebar of this page.
So a few months back my old laptop that ran Homeseer, my home automation software, finally died.
I’ve used it for quite a long time and mostly ignored it. I’ve been running Homeseer for about 13 years now and ported my setup from a couple different PCs but always managed to save my configuration through the transfers and upgrades. This time I don’t have a backup unfortunately.
I’ve invested a lot of time and money into the system over the last decade and a half. Most of it is x10 hardware but there are a few other kludges in there as well. My weather system, a zwave module or two and a boatload of scripting. The last five years or so I’ve deactivated a good bit of it but left the core system up and running that I didn’t have to tinker with.
After my system died I figured it was time to move on to some newer technologies. Zwave is supposed to be more reliable and it’s wireless so I wanted to make sure that I could use something that was compatible with old and new. Homeseer is but I also wanted a dedicated controller as well.
After reading some (obviously not enough) reviews and docs I settled in the Vera 3 from MiCasa Verde. Quite a few of the other Tasker users I communicate with use the Vera and there is a plugin that let’s you communicate and hook Tasker up with it. Pretty cool.
The Vera (the lite version and the 3, which is what I purchased) are pretty cheap for HA hardware. According to their web site it’s compatible with Zwave, insteon and x10. I figured it would be a win/win. Something to help me move into new territory but still stay on a budget.
I received my unit last week and immediately set it up. Several things I noticed right off the bat. Initially you go to getvera.com and create and account, which redirects you back to the home network and finds your vera(s). This has its good and bad points which I’m not going to get into.
Anyway, I set up my account through them, found my unit and started the setup. I was able to add my one Zwave module with no problems but that’s where the ease of use ended. You’re supposed to be able to go to apps.mios.com and browse/download apps from there. Sort of like the Google Play store. Not a bad idea at all. Unfortunately even though my Vera was linked to my account when I tried to go to the external app store it told me I had no units linked to my account. The answer from their text support? Download the apps from within the Vera interface. That’s fine and dandy but NOT what I was trying to do. I guess that’s not something they are trying to fix.
Another glaring omission is there are absolutely NO help files or documents to access from the Vera. Apparently a previous firmware upgrade in the last two years broke the links and they just haven’t bothered to fix it. Tech support did say they are working on a new release within the next two weeks that fixes the issue. We’ll see I guess.
I’m tired and have to work in the morning so will finish the second part of the review then…