Mi Casa Verde 2

With the heat deal for the Mi Casa Verde 2 controller I'm wondering if this would complement well an ELK system. I just purchased my Elk M1G (Still in the UPS truck somewhere) and I'm looking to do UPB, Z-wave, schelage locks and IP camera later on.

For the well knowledgeable folks out there Is this a good mix of technology?

They have an ELK driver now, I haven't had time to test it yet. If you want to do Z-Wave, you are going to need a primary controller which can handle managing your Z-Wave devices (including the locks), so you might as well go the Vera 2 route

The Vera 2 Elk plug-in still has very rudimentary functionality, but it will be enhanced in the near future once the developer has finished other works in progress.
You can find a thread on it HERE.

From what I understand, the Vera will control the Elk, but not vice versa. Perhaps if you connected an Elk serial interface to the Vera with a USB adapter you could manage something.

Quixote_1 said:

The Vera 2 Elk plug-in still has very rudimentary functionality, but it will be enhanced in the near future once the developer has finished other works in progress.
You can find a thread on it HERE.

From what I understand, the Vera will control the Elk, but not vice versa. Perhaps if you connected an Elk serial interface to the Vera with a USB adapter you could manage something.

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I was thinking of buying one of these, but if they're having a fire sale, it makes me think the Vera 3 is about to be released.

signal15 said:

I was thinking of buying one of these, but if they're having a fire sale, it makes me think the Vera 3 is about to be released.

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While I can't guarantee that the Vera 3 isn't around the corner, I bought one of these with a mail in rebate for a free smart switch ($40 value) about six months ago. I think they just run sales now and then.

Incidentally, I love my Vera.

radengr said:

While I can't guarantee that the Vera 3 isn't around the corner, I bought one of these with a mail in rebate for a free smart switch ($40 value) about six months ago. I think they just run sales now and then.

Incidentally, I love my Vera.

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Dan confirmed today that Vera3 is just around the corner for $300. Now Im deciding if i want Vera3 or Vera2.

http://www.cocoontech.com/portal/articles/news/18-z-wave/557-mi-casa-verde-shows-next-generation-vera-hardware-at-cedia

Unless you plan on using the Vera controller as a WiFi router as well, I think the Vera 2 will do the job just fine. I hope to have more details tomorrow when I catch up with them @ CEDIA.

Why the hell are they selling a Vera 3 when they haven't even got Vera 2 working correctly yet?
The Vera 2 is supposed to wrap its devices as UPnP but it does not do this as advertised. I still like my Vera 2, but I would like to see them fix the problems it has before selling a newer version.

Quixote_1 said:

Why the hell are they selling a Vera 3 when they haven't even got Vera 2 working correctly yet?
The Vera 2 is supposed to wrap its devices as UPnP but it does not do this as advertised. I still like my Vera 2, but I would like to see them fix the problems it has before selling a newer version.

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I think this will be a good thing for Vera 2 owners. The Vera 3 and VeraLite are not completly different devices. Fundamentally, Vera is really just the MiOS engine running on top of OpenWRT. I think it is the same with the new systems coming out supporting MiOS (Popcornhour, etc) - this should mean better Vera 2 performance eventually as well.

It sounds like they have implemented a lot of fixes in UI5 as well. Mi Casa Verde has been slowely chipping away at many issues people have. I want to see that they are selling new Veras to new people and expending into new markets so they will be around for a long time to support my Vera.

radengr said:

I think this will be a good thing for Vera 2 owners. The Vera 3 and VeraLite are not completly different devices. Fundamentally, Vera is really just the MiOS engine running on top of OpenWRT. I think it is the same with the new systems coming out supporting MiOS (Popcornhour, etc) - this should mean better Vera 2 performance eventually as well.

It sounds like they have implemented a lot of fixes in UI5 as well. Mi Casa Verde has been slowely chipping away at many issues people have. I want to see that they are selling new Veras to new people and expending into new markets so they will be around for a long time to support my Vera.

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Makes sense, it just upsets me a little to see that the UPnP bug that I mentioned was filed and was then designated as low priority. You would think that a problem of that magnitude would take precedence over pumping out new products (which I presume will have the same bug).
I hope you are right and they have made some big improvements with UI5.
I do not have much experience with Micasaverde, so at this point I am hopeful but do not know what to expect. *fingers crossed*

Quixote_1 said:

Makes sense, it just upsets me a little to see that the UPnP bug that I mentioned was filed and was then designated as low priority. You would think that a problem of that magnitude would take precedence over pumping out new products (which I presume will have the same bug).
I hope you are right and they have made some big improvements with UI5.
I do not have much experience with Micasaverde, so at this point I am hopeful but do not know what to expect. *fingers crossed*

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That is interesting... I just pulled up this xml on my vera:

http://<vera ip>/upnp/vera.xml

It is pretty clear that the xml came from this template:

http://www.upnp.org/specs/basic/UPnP-basic-Basic-v1-Device.pdf

It would be pretty easy to edit the XML so that it was valid, but a basic device doesn't provide any control. With a bit of work you could make this XML 'valid' and fix the bug, but I don't think that would actually buy you anything. Vera does pretty well with accessing UPnP devices, I'm not sure if there is a straightforward way in UPnP for it to automatically export all the child devices it has. I would think there should be?

You want this to control Vera with a Girder 5 plugin right? There is nothing in the Vera right now that would prevent writing a nice plugin for Girder. I just think you need to take a slightly different approach.

I have pictures of the new Vera3 Lite, and a video showing off the latest UI5. I'll be posting the video very soon (still at CEDIA). The new UI looks better, with a focus on being more user friendly, energy monitoring and plugins. Stay tuned If you have any questions you need me to ask, shoot an e-mail to electron@cocoontech and I'll try to stop there again.

Dan (electron) said:

I have pictures of the new Vera3 Lite, and a video showing off the latest UI5. I'll be posting the video very soon (still at CEDIA). The new UI looks better, with a focus on being more user friendly, energy monitoring and plugins. Stay tuned If you have any questions you need me to ask, shoot an e-mail to electron@cocoontech and I'll try to stop there again.

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I want to see it !!

Dan (electron) said:

I have pictures of the new Vera3 Lite, and a video showing off the latest UI5. I'll be posting the video very soon (still at CEDIA). The new UI looks better, with a focus on being more user friendly, energy monitoring and plugins. Stay tuned If you have any questions you need me to ask, shoot an e-mail to electron@cocoontech and I'll try to stop there again.

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is it alright if you post a quick review to the forums without the video before 9/15th? Id like to know before buying the vera2 that is on sale right now.

Im evaluating homeseer 2 and just bought a zwave dongle to go with it. it does everything i want except it needs a full blown computer. i would prefer a low power device like the vera2/3 as long as it does everything i want.

its tough to decide between homeseer 2 and vera2, especially with version 3 of homeseer and vera coming out this year. i just want to spend my money once!

I will post the video hopefully tonight, and some additional pictures/info. Takes a lot of time to go through all this data (I take many duplicates etc, to make sure I have at least some usable materials).

If the Vera 2 does everything you want, and you don't think you want any of the special features HomeSeer offers, then I think you will be pretty happy with the Vera 2 controller. The Vera 3 is mostly an UI overhaul running on top of a beefed up processor, but the Vera 2 can run run UI5 just fine (confirmed this myself). Anyways, back to work on that video