Newbi Vera user converting to openHAB hardware?

Setup, Configuration and Use Beginners
1

I’m done with Vera unstabilty and ready to make the big move. I wanted to get opinions first about hardware. I ordered this and would like you experts opinion if I did the right thing…

ODROID-XU4 w/OTC battery, pwr supply
32GB eMMC 5.0 Module XU3/XU4 Linux (Blue Dot),eMMC to microSD Adapter,Transcend USB3.0 microSD Adapter

I want to just have Vera handle Z-Wave functions and port everything else to openHAB.
End the end, once I’m setup, do I uninstall plugins from the Vera or does openHAB basically just take control over them? I am unclear how OH actually goes about removing Vera of any load work.

Thanks all, and I’m sure looking forward to your help getting me off the ground.

2

That’s a very nice little piece of hardware that should run openHAB well. The MiOS binding for openHAB will continue to talk to the Vera for its Z-Wave (or any) devices, but I recommend an Aeon Z-Stick Gen 5 for when you are ready to retire the Vera entirely, at which time you will exclude the devices from the Vera and include them to the Z-Stick, and then use the Z-Wave binding in openHAB. For your remaining devices, you would have to evaluate which openHAB bindings can take over the role of the remaining Vera plugins you are using. Once openHAB is working for that kind of device, you could uninstall the Vera plugin that performed a similar job.

3

Thank you for the input. I’m looking forward to openHAB. So as I understand it, once I successfully bind a Vera plugin to OH, I can/should delete it from the Vera. As long as it resides in Vera, it will be used by Vera as well.

Right now I loaded OH on my PC along with the Demo to play around and get a feel for OH. I expect I won’t start anything Vera until next year.

4

Only thing I have left on my Vera is my Z-Wave network, any status on Lock support?

5

The primary causes of Vera units failing relate to it’s lack of resources (Memory, mostly) and it wearing out the internal Flash (due to logging).

Z-Wave devices within Vera don’t take a lot of memory. Vera Plugins, and Lua code running in rules, consume the the bulk of it’s available resources - and ultimately cause it to become unstable.

As you cutover to openHAB, and remove unnecessary Plugins & Rules from your Vera/MiOS unit, it tends to become more and more stable. This migration process can be executed as slow or as fast as you want.

I’m still running my Vera3 for Z-Wave and, for me, I don’t plan to migrate the Z-Wave off Vera for quite a while. It’s Z-Wave driver is rock solid, the extended RF range (large external antenna), Z-Wave Backup & Lock support are important for my usage/house-coverage.

The lock will shortly be replaced with a Lockitron Bolt, so it’ll be one less reason…

I also have a few spare Vera’s (Vera2, Vera3 and VeraLite and even an Aeon 2 USB Dongle from my Vera1), so there’s not a lot of point spending the extra $$ for a USB dongle.

6

guessed:
The lock will shortly be replaced with a Lockitron Bolt, so it’ll be one less reason…

I agree. I will keep Vera for the Zwave. But what the hell is Lockitron?? Is this something Vera will implement?

7

Lockitron makes door locks, their original one used wifi, and sucked down too much power. Their new one uses Bluetooth LE so it doesn’t burn batteries so quickly.

It’ll replace an aging Kwikset Z-Wave lock I’m currently using, and eventually I’ll get a BT-Wifi bridge (or build one) to hook it into openHAB.

8

Just to be clear, Vera and openHAB are separate. You don’t “bind” a Vera plugin to openHAB. You can install an openHAB binding that does the same thing as a Vera plugin. Once you do that and configure it you can remove the plugin and config from the Vera as openHAB takes over.

9

Ok Rich, I think I got the concept now. So now I will look for some mios bindings that can replicate some Vera plugin I use now. THEN after OH is doing it’s function correctly, I will remove said plugin for Vera.

Thank you.

10

The “mios binding” is the add on that will enable openHAB to talk to your vera to control it’s resources that you will still run off of it (z-wave or other plug-ins). What you will want to do is look at the other available openHAB “bindings” which are add-ons/plugins that enable you to talk to the other technologies you want to control or are currently using your Vera to control (ie. DSC alarm, omnilink, Philips HUE,etc.)

11

I would like to re-open this thread. I have been unable to pull everything together during my quest to migrate from a Vera lite to OH2. Currently my Vera supports Envisalink, Schlage z-wave locks, a Trane z-wave thermostat, and a handful of z-wave light modules. I am inclined not to expand the Vera config in favor of more opensource options. So far I been able to spin up OH2 on a pi and get some things to work including some of my envisalink functionality. Then I seem to have hit a few major roadblocks. Can someone confirm/correct my research below?

  1. OH2 will not currently support my Schlage zwave locks.
  2. There is no integration example for a Trane zwave thermo?
  3. I can find no good example of setting email to SMS alerts from my DSC alarm.
  4. The Envisalink only supports a single connection so I cannot run Mios/Homebuddy and OH2 at the same time.

Assuming these things are correct, I am forced to go back to Vera until things evolve with OH2. My other option is to give Samsung a good look. But I reaaally don’t want to go down that road.

12

No responses? Does that mean that my research is correct?

13

1 Check this thread - appears that some have Schlage locks working: OH2 Z-Wave refactoring and testing... and SECURITY

3 Lots of discussion on Pushover - you could look at those samples?: Human Readable pushover messages
4 True, Envisalink supports only one connection, but this isn’t really a limitation of openHAB - anything connecting will take a port.

14

First off, thanks for the reply!

#1
I did go through your 1st link once before (it is pretty long) but could not determine what level of function they were able to achieve must less figure out how to repeat the result. I though the schlage locks were pretty popular? There really needs to be a “follow these steps” section for every known good integration with OH. Even afte spending over an hour reading that link, I could not figure out where things are with schlage. To complicate matters, I really want to use my Vera as the z-wave radio. That link seems to be a hodgepodge of different products and issues. Very confusing. Has anyone been able to get Vera/Homebuddy level of function with OH? With or w/o Vera?

15

#3

Looks like another multi-hour research project on what pushover is/will do/setup. I was really hoping for something that started off by explaining what it is, when to use it, and a ground up example of getting one simple alert working. In general, OH seems to be missing those kinds of instructions. I would love to help write some of those while I am going through it. But 1st I need to know if my end goal is possible…move from homebuddy to OH. That brings me to #4.

16

If you really want to use the Vera as the radio, then why not use the Mios binding? http://docs.openhab.org/addons/bindings/mios1/readme.html

Never used Homebuddy, sorry.

17

#4

Totally agree on this not being an OH problem! But if I cannot get all hings working on OH, then this prevents me from from running both. That is why I included it in my original list. I broke this in to multiple responses so that others can follow their issue.

18

That was on my list of things to try. But after more hours of reading I could not determine if it solved the Schlage problem, or created more of it’s own. The last line of one thread says MIOS binding is only for OH1, I installed OH2 thinking the latest version would be best to start with. If I go back to OH1 (ugh), would that fully work with schlage locks?

19

I don’t know about Shlage locks but I’m using the Mios binding on OH2 for my Kwikset locks (I have one I’m testing with the new Zwave binding but there are still some channels needed for full functional parity) and it works great.

20

Some quick responses. I’m doing triage on the forum right now so apologize if I’m saying something someone has already said.

The OH 2 binding I do not believe supports the Security command class yet. However, the 1.9 version binding does and you can install any 1.x version binding in OH 2.

There are no integration examples for specific zwave devices for the most part. There are thousands of them and creating a separate tutorial for each would be untenable. However, you really don’t need one. Assuming the device is in the zwave database for the binding it will show up in your inbox as one or more new Things. Accept the Thing(s) from the inbox and then in PaperUI under Configuration, you can browse to these new Things. The Thing page will show all of the supported channels the Thing supports. You then link an Item to one of those Channels and you are good to go.

There are some side things that you may need to do. For example, if it is a battery powered device you may need to wake it up several times for the binding to figure out what it is. If it is not part of the database, you may need to request it be added or add it yourself.

  1. For the most part, you are not going to find a lot of specific tutorials like this and number 2. Instead, you will find more generic tutorials, for example, one on how to send an email and another for how to connect to a DSC alarm. It is up to you to combine them to provide your end solution. Everyone’s home automation requirements and setups are unique. Specific tutorials are not always tenable.

  2. True. If the Envisalink only supports one connection at a time only one of the hubs can connect to it at a time.

There are literally hundreds of thousands if not millions of “known good integration” combinations. Documenting them all is simply not feasible. [quote=“avgjoe, post:14, topic:5004”]
That link seems to be a hodgepodge of different products and issues.
[/quote]

That link is specific to the zwave binding. If you want to use the Vera as your zwave controller that link is irrelevant. As is your question for 2. as OH will not be integrating with zwave directly at all. You will use the MIOS binding.

The OH documentation is focused on documenting HOW to integrate specific technologies with OH. Not what specific technologies are. We are having a hard enough time keeping up with just documenting core OH 2, we will never be able to become a one-stop source for information on all the technologies it supports.

That being said, Pushover, like Pushbullet, NotifyMyAndroid, and others are push notification services that let you “push” notifications to your devices.

The instructions for how to integrate and use these services are located in the individual readme for the add-on. For example, here is the docs for Pushover. But be aware that the plug-ins assume a certain level of understanding of OH. I recommend going through the OH 2 Beginner’s Tutorial to pick up some basic knowledge about how OH works.[quote=“avgjoe, post:18, topic:5004”]
The last line of one thread says MIOS binding is only for OH1, I installed OH2 thinking the latest version would be best to start with. If I go back to OH1 (ugh), would that fully work with schlage locks?
[/quote]

You can install any 1.x version binding on OH 2. For bindings like the zwave binding where there is a 1.9 and 2.x version you need to enable “Show Legacy add-ons” (or something like that) in the PaperUI Configurations so it will list both.

But, since you want to use the Vera as your zwave controller, that thread is irrelevant. You want to look at the MIOS. Pay particular attention to the Examples for Co-existing.