Using Vera as secondary controller

[cheeryfool]

I'm not trying to be a wanker here, but... Are you serious? I have yet to find anything that I could do with PLEG that I can't do with the HS3 event engine in a fraction of the time and in a user friendly way.

I don't get to hear other people use the 'w' word anywhere near enough these days So much more expressive than most others

[brientim]

There is a very legitimate reason to use Vera other than the apps/plugins albeit cost or available integrated system and that is the z-wave capabilities.

1. Vera as a backbone z-wave device is extremely capable and provide very robust back up and recovery processes.

2. Z-wave back-up... and recovery.

I mentioned that twice because I have had to do a complete rebuild twice.

[Black Cat]

Absolutely serious.

HS has no sequence equivalent.

[S-F]

PLEG for one...If there was only a HS equivalent.

I'm not trying to be a wanker here, but... Are you serious? I have yet to find anything that I could do with PLEG that I can't do with the HS3 event engine in a fraction of the time and in a user friendly way.

[Black Cat]

PLEG for one...If there was only a HS equivalent.

[S-F]

Does anyone know anything else about this? I have a Vera 3 that I'm retiring, but I wonder if I could still use it with my HS3 system? I have a few odd things that don't work with HS3 that do/did with the Vera.

I have not tried anything yet, but I assume it would be doable?

Just out of curiosity, what is it that the Vera can do that HS3 can't?

[NickTheGreat]

Does anyone know anything else about this? I have a Vera 3 that I'm retiring, but I wonder if I could still use it with my HS3 system? I have a few odd things that don't work with HS3 that do/did with the Vera.

I have not tried anything yet, but I assume it would be doable?

[fcol]

I think I follow. Thanks so much for taking the time to explain. I think I'll continue to operate Vera and HS independently and perhaps use Imperihome to bridge. That's very workable in my particular use case.
Happy Holidays!

[brientim]

The controller shift is the reserve and either way you will loose the current devices on one until they are re-added to the network.

Add as a secondary controller in effect, incorporates the new controller, in the use case your Vera, into the HS network. So this results in it inherenting the nodes from the HS and having the same HouseID. Therefore, when you add a node to Vera, it is being incorporated into HS3. Vera should not be able to corrupt HS3 as the only communication is within z-wave.

I have never thought about trying to add Vera to HS3 as a native and bridging the two in the same way Znet.

Your worse case, is achievable and that is the route taken between Vera and the OpenHAB project.

The quick and rude solutions that presents itself is to use them natively and use ImperiHome to bridge for presentstion/ usability until you could resolve/work an alternative workable option.

[fcol]

It is the reverse required if you just want to add Vera as a secondary controller .

I am doing this by memory but on your HS.

Send Network Information to another Controller.

On your Vera, Setup -> Z-Wave Settings -> Advanced -> click Go next to 'Copy Z-Wave network from a master controller'

Thanks (and great memory!). But all my nodes disappeared from Vera and the only thing added to HS was a Sigma Static Controller. I tried reloading everything but I couldn't find the two nodes on either Vera or HS.

Maybe I have nomenclature screwed up (use of term "secondary controller"?). The Controller Shift from Vera seems like the choice I want. When I tried it before, Vera-Setup-Zwave Settings-Options showed that Vera's Role had changed to slave. And the fact that I was able to monitor those Vera nodes inside the HS interface was exactly what I wanted (minus the part of losing access to my other 30 HS nodes).

To clarify, I want Vera to communicate to these problematic nodes and pass their states to HS. In some ways, I don't even want Vera to know HS exists since it would probably find some way to corrupt HS So choosing "Send Network Information to another Controller" from HS doesn't make sense to me. I don't know why Vera would need to know the network info from HS...

For what it's worth, I tried Vera Controller Shift and HS "Add/Include a Node" but nothing happened.

At worst, I guess I could try and have Vera send something over http to HS whenever there's a status change (this would stretch my non-programming background). But being able to use this old Vera as a second ZNET-like device would be much better (for other reasons such as the Vera is able to directly communicate with one of my door locks whereas I need to use a repeater to get that same lock to talk to my ZNET).

If you cannot reach a Zwave node, you should consider adding more always on devices in between. The network is a Mesh network, so the intermediate nodes will act as repeaters.

True. But in this specific case, both trouble nodes are outdoors with no available power in between. One is uphill of my house and the other is downhill. I will try repeaters again (outdoor Jasco outlet switches) if I can't get this to work. But mounting the modified Vera high in my house worked much better... Or if I could modify my ZNET to add a better antenna, then that would would probably be my preferred option (but that's for another thread and not easy from my understanding).

[brientim]

It is the reverse required if you just want to add Vera as a secondary controller .

I am doing this by memory but on your HS.

Send Network Information to another Controller.

On your Vera, Setup -> Z-Wave Settings -> Advanced -> click Go next to 'Copy Z-Wave network from a master controller'

[wpiman]

I migrated from Vera to HS3 recently and am really happy with the switch. One thing that I miss about my old Vera 3 was its range (I had added an external antenna). I have a couple nodes that I can't reach with my ZNET and have left these nodes included with the Vera. I was hoping to basically use the Vera as a secondary controller to monitor these distant nodes/sensors (and pass their statuses to HS3). Is it possible to do this? In effect, can I turn my Vera into another pseudo-ZNET?

I tried to add a new Zwave Interface in the HS3 Zwave plugin. I first went into Vera's UI5 Advanaced Zwave Settings and clicked Controller Shift. Then I went into HS3 Zwave plugin, Add New Interface, selected Ethernet interface and entered my Vera's IP and a wide range of ports (80,22,37,123,232,3480,49451). But this didn't work - HS3 could never communicate with Vera.

Then I tried the Vera Controller Shift again. This time, I used my existing ZNET and chose Action "Receive Network from Another Controller." This imported all of the nodes from Vera (and I was able to monitor their statuses). But it also wiped out all of the nodes I had previously migrated into HS3! Fortunately, I had a backup.

So it seems like I'm close. Any suggestions?

If you cannot reach a Zwave node, you should consider adding more always on devices in between. The network is a Mesh network, so the intermediate nodes will act as repeaters.

[fcol]

I migrated from Vera to HS3 recently and am really happy with the switch. One thing that I miss about my old Vera 3 was its range (I had added an external antenna). I have a couple nodes that I can't reach with my ZNET and have left these nodes included with the Vera. I was hoping to basically use the Vera as a secondary controller to monitor these distant nodes/sensors (and pass their statuses to HS3). Is it possible to do this? In effect, can I turn my Vera into another pseudo-ZNET?

I tried to add a new Zwave Interface in the HS3 Zwave plugin. I first went into Vera's UI5 Advanaced Zwave Settings and clicked Controller Shift. Then I went into HS3 Zwave plugin, Add New Interface, selected Ethernet interface and entered my Vera's IP and a wide range of ports (80,22,37,123,232,3480,49451). But this didn't work - HS3 could never communicate with Vera.

Then I tried the Vera Controller Shift again. This time, I used my existing ZNET and chose Action "Receive Network from Another Controller." This imported all of the nodes from Vera (and I was able to monitor their statuses). But it also wiped out all of the nodes I had previously migrated into HS3! Fortunately, I had a backup.

So it seems like I'm close. Any suggestions?