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MiCasaVerde's Vera 2 Offers FlexibilityBy Paul King March 15, 2011 Vera 2 is flexible, multi-purpose controller with an intuitive interface for managing home and small business security systems, energy consumption, home theater equipment, and many household electronics from the convenience of a smart phone or computer.
Features of the Vera 2:
Initial setupThe package including the following:
Figure 1. Clockwise from the left: instructions, battery pack, barrel cable, battery charger, Vera 2, Ethernet cable, and power cable.
The double-ended barrel power cable is used for connecting the battery pack to the Vera 2, so that during setup you can carry the Vera 2 around and associate your devices. The instructions direct you to (http://micasaverde.com/vera2). The web site shows a graphic of how to connect the Vera 2. Following the instructions, I plugged in the power connector to the wall outlet and to the Vera 2. Next I connected the Vera 2 to my internet connection by connecting the Ethernet cable from the port labeled eth1 on the Vera 2, to an empty port in the back of my wireless router; which is connected to my internet connection via cable modem. After the appropriate lights lit up, I hit continue on the web site and said nothing was found. I decided to wait a minute and try again. My next attempt was successful, the web site said it found the Vera 2 on my local network, and showed the IP address that my wireless router had assigned to it. Continuing with the setup, I was informed my firmware needed to be update. It said it needed 15 minutes to update the firmware but it only ended up taking about 7 minutes to complete. After the Vera 2’s firmware was upgraded, I continued on. The next question I was asked was if I would like to use my Vera 2 with MiOS. It informed me that MiOS would allow me to access my Vera 2 remotely, and does not require any credit card number or personal information. This sounded good to me, so I agreed. A few seconds on the MiOS site, I chose a username, password and provided my email address and was returned to the Vera 2 setup wizard.
Figure 2. Screenshot of setup wizard.
After selecting my time zone and location, it was time to set up my devices. The devices the Vera 2 listed it is compatible with are Z-Wave, Insteon, X10, and IP Cameras. I do not have any Insteon or X10 devices, but I have IP Cameras and Z-Wave devices. This portion of the setup is intended to create your network of Z-Wave devices and associate them with the Vera 2. However, I had an existing Z-Wave installation already associated with a stand–alone master controller. So before I destroyed my existing network and re-associated everything to the Vera 2, I wanted to find out if the Vera 2 could replicate my network as a slave controller. So I decided to skip to step 2, where I could create scenes. Since I had no devices to create scenes with, I skipped to step 3, which was for creating notifications. I still had no devices, so I couldn’t create any notifications yet. I continued clicking through the initial setup in hopes I could get to a more advanced setup menu that would allow me to replicate my network from my existing primary controller. I found exactly what I was looking for under the Z-Wave menu, on the advanced tab. It was labeled ‘Copy Z-Wave network from a master controller’. In a future firmware update I would hope the developers add this option in the beginning of the setup for those of us who have an existing network to begin with and are adding the Vera 2 to our setup for more advanced automation. After hitting the copy button, I was instructed to have my primary controller to transmit the network information for replication. I’ve done this before with other slave controllers so I didn’t have to consult the manual of my primary controller, but you may have to if you have never done it before. It wasn’t noticeable at first due to my unfamiliarity with the user interface, but at the top right corner was a status message that said ‘Configuring Z-Wave devices’. Slowly my screen began populating with Dimmable Lights, Appliance Modules, my Thermostat, Motion Controllers, etc. I waited until the ‘Configuring Z-Wave devices’ status message went away before poking around any further. ConfiguringI decided to go back to where I would have been in the setup, if I hadn’t already had a network to replicate, back to step 1 of the wizard. I was confident my controller replication had added all my Z-Wave devices to the Vera 2. The only thing missing was my IP cameras, I tried using the automatic option but it didn’t find anything. I went on to use the manual add button. The manual method wanted the IP address of each my cameras. Two out of my three cameras aren’t on the standard port 80 and the screen offered nowhere to supply a port number. I tried methods of adding the port number that other IP Camera software has used in the past, such as adding a colon, then the port, to the IP address. Each time it would come back and say "here is a snapshot from the camera," but there was no snapshot. I tried putting in completely false information to see if it was even connecting to the camera at all, and it came back with the same message. So the add-camera method wasn’t very smart at determining if it actually obtained a connection to the camera or not. In the end, the only IP Camera I actually got working was the one that was on port 80. With all my devices added, I went to step 2: Create a scene. Normally this would be a great time to start creating scenes but all my devices are just labeled generic things such as "Dimmable Light." I don’t know what room or which light they are so I exited the setup wizard and went back to the main screen where I could see all my devices. I noticed something different on this screen in the box labeled "MiOS Marketplace" called "Generic IP Camera," and I was showing two cameras. I only configured one camera, so I was puzzled at why there were two IP cameras. I tried removing both cameras, and adding the one again, but each time two IP Cameras came back and one actually showed a screen grab from my camera, the other didn’t. I assume that the other camera is some sort of bug or dummy device for the plug-in to work. I decided to just get on with the setup and ignore the fact that I have a camera listed that I can’t use. For the next hour, I carried my laptop around the house turning on and off each device that was in the list to figure out what was turning on and off. When I located the device, I would give it a name and place it into the correct room.
Figure 3. All devices labeled and in correct rooms.
After all the devices had names and rooms, I went back again to step 2: Scenes. I created a scene where a few of the lights in my house would turn on dimly 35 minutes before sundown, then move to full brightness five minutes before sundown. Another scene that used my motion detector to turn on a rope light attached to my basement stairs. I even created a few scenes that changed the temperature setting on my thermostat during the day and night. I tried to replicate one of the more advanced scenes I had on another system. The scene was: If the lights in the living room are off, and there is motion in the living room, from the hours of 11pm and 5am, then dimly turn the lights on for 20 minutes, then turn them back off. I could create a simple rule like the stairs light to turn on with motion, but only during the hours of 11pm and 5am. When creating scenes there is a tab where you can add Luup. The help pages state that Luup is a Lua-based scripting language, where you might be able to add an advanced script like the one I was trying to add, but sadly I could not find enough examples and documentation to figure out how to use it. Now that I was finished with the scenes, I went to step 3; Notifications. The only notification I could think to add right now was an email that told me when the batteries in my motion detectors got below 75% so I could replace the batteries. Until my batteries die I have no way of determining if this function works but it sounds handy. I thought I’d browse around the MiOS marketplace, which appears to have an easy way to install add-ons for your Vera 2 system. I installed the smartphone plugin. I’m curious to know what other add-ons they will add to the marketplace in the future. Further useOnce all my devices were set up and scenes were configured, I could sit back and watch it do its magic. I ended up adjusting the timing of my automatic lights coming on. My stairs light turn on when I get near them. No problems encountered. I’ve also used the web interface from my smartphone, a Palm Pre. The web interface worked perfectly fine with my phone’s browser. This might have been due to the smartphone add-on I installed, or the fact my phone has a pretty modern browser. I’ve also used the web interface from my IPad, which also worked great. I wish there was a dedicated IPad app for it instead of using the web interface in Safari, but it worked fine. Lastly, while I was away visiting some family members, I used MiOS account I configured during my initial setup to login to my Vera 2 remotely from far away. I went to http://mios.com and logged in with my previously configured username and password. Once logged in I click on the dashboard tab, and the interface loads with the same web interface I see when I’m at home and it works exactly the same. I was even able to see my IP Camera. I even turn a few lights on and off periodically to make it appear someone was actually home, to thwart off any thieves, which I could have just created some scenes to automate. ConclusionI have to say I’m really impressed with the Vera 2. The physical design is about the size of a wireless router, and uses a lot less power than running a dedicated PC to control my automation. There were a few hiccups during the setup process due to my advanced setup requirements having a pre-existing network, and the IP Camera setup problem, but I was able to solve most of those problems. The remote login via MiOS can come in handy, especially if you have IP Cameras. The web interface on the Vera 2 has a pretty modern look and feel. The firmware is updatable for added features and bug fixes in the future, and the marketplace can extend functionality as new add-ons are developed. All of these features make for pretty solid device.
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