“Very good product. For the first time set up a similar device, in general, everything took about 30 minutes I am very happy purchase. While I can not estimate objectively all the advantages the device, because use only begun. There is a slight delay of a fraction of a second when managing devices, but it works very stable!”
“Purchased this as an upgrade to my Vera Edge, it offers a faster processor and greater connectivity combining Bluetooth zigbee and zwave into a single unit. It does however lack wifi connectivity and must therefore be hard wired to your router, in addition support for Bluetooth devices is presently limited to one bulb and the zigbee devices in the UK are also somewhat lacking. It appears Vera has a zigbee implementation of only the HA protocol meaning it is unable to talk directly to Philips Hue which is arguably the biggest selling zigbee device range in the U.K. Save your money, benefit from WiFi connectivity and purchase the Vera Edge device.”
“The Vera is a very inconsistent product, on the one hand simple to use if all you want to do is switch something on and off, but anything complicated such as switching something on and off but only if another thing is already on for example, needs programming in the worst, most poorly-documented, terrible development environment ever. Your programming window is a 10-line web page no matter how big the page. Error reports are limited to "error in LUA scenes and events", not even any information as to which device is causing the error, just "something is wrong somewhere", leaving you to try and search some very unhelpful logs with no documentation to go on. Reliability is very poor, with frequent reboots and power cycles needed several times a week. Firmware updates, when available, cause a redirect to the firmware update page every time you log in, but actually installing the update invariably breaks something requiring much debugging. The s
upport team wasted my time by taking 2 months to go full circle, and I'm now waking up to the house being cold regularly as the vera has died overnight. Time to get rid of it, it's taking over my life rather than being in the background.”
“Had the box for 18 months now. It gave problems during initial set-up of my devices (Secure thermostats) and worryingly their appearance and functionality changed with some Vera updates. Recently it started getting blocked and only removing the power cable would reboot it. This morning it has blocked and even a factory reset will not bring it to life.
I am a programmer by profession and electronics hobbyist, but this thing has cost me countless wasted hours and finally beaten me - and I'm not trying to do anything fancy! I am now searching for a replacement to this useless product.”
“I bought this unit 14 months ago to manage a flat I let (3 hrs journey time away). It ran a couple of door locks, a couple of thermostats and a handful of other simple devices switches/sensors that I could either never get to work or they paired at some point but permanently appeared dormant....
Initially, I found it very frustrating that it took an age to pair a device or reboot. User interaction was via fleeting messages which you could miss while waiting several hours...
However, once configured, it appeared reliable for my main devices.
However, a few weeks ago the unit stopped accepting any writes to the memory - I could not update the firmware from UI7 Version 7.0.15 to version 7.0.17 and it did not save and changes to settings.
I tried a total factory reset and it has not recovered despite 24hrs spent rebooting etc and a further 2.5hrs on the phone and screen sharing session with tech Vera support.
There is no documentation for the unit other than a rudimentary description of the basic web interface which is self explanatory in any event. There is no explanation of how to ssh into the unit, how to install devices that are not pre-configured etc
In fact you get the impression you have bought a capable product that is let down by a lack of adequate supporting documentation.
The web interface is not user friendly, it takes several clicks even to log in. So If I have the controller on open on my desktop, the session closes after 30 mins and to open a lock remotely can take 30 secs to a minute as you login to the gateway server, it searches for your controller, you connect to and login to the controller, only then can you start to look for the device you want to control - not good when a guest is on the phone trying to get in. Most frustratingly, NONE of the advanced features in the web interface are documented in ANY way - this seems such a simple matter to resolve. There is no explanation of the technical specification for Z-Wave and how the unit implements it - you have to hunt that down yourself.
The iOS app is not much better, you can change modes easily enough but anything else is tiresome - adding PINs to locks and PIN time restrictions is not possible with the iOS app you need to use the main web UI.
This review is written after 14 months active use and several 24hrs sessions trying to fix the unit or install/pair devices.
Vera do have regular firmware updates, I would like to see more focus on usability improvements based on properly researched use cases (i.e. logging in and switching something on/off!). Better documentation even some tooltips on the web interface for the advanced features and ssh access would go along way.
If you reach this far, then you are probably persistent enough to be able to cope with using the unit.”
“I got the Vera Plus to replace my Vera3 on UI5 which has worked flawlessly for 3 years. I had decided to upgrade from UI5 (which is now effectively EOL) to UI7 and decided to get the Vera Plus at the same time.
Controller to controller migration works but I was advised by Mios support that it is NOT a long-term way of migrating your existing Z-Wave devices from previous Vera controllers. It is something to do with differences in the mesh network that will degrade over time. The best way is to individually move your devices across and re-pairing them with the Vera Plus.This is a pain because I have a couple of devices in really out-of-the-way places. At least Mios support were honest in telling me this. This is not an issue if you starting from scratch.
I have only moved a few devices across to the Vera Plus so far but it all looks good. It seems to better communicate with some battery powered devices that are a fair distance away that the Vera3 had occasional problems with. The Vera Plus seems quite snappy but I never had a problem with speed on the Vera3.
There is one firmware problem that did come up. Under some circumstance the "WiFi" indicator will not go out even though the internal wireless interface is disabled. This is just cosmetic and Mios support told me this would be fixed in future release.
UI7: I don't like it! Functionally it is fine but the various pages are too fancy, in terms of graphics candy, and consume too much screen area to the extent you can miss stuff that requires a scroll to see. Notifications are the same - too many fancy graphics filling your screen with the actual data, that you are interested in, sometimes requires a scroll to see it all. AND after all this time notifications still do not have the Vera local time when the notification was raised - this is a pain when your Vera is in a different timezone to you.
For all its foibles I think the Vera (all versions) is the platform for me compared to all other I have looked at - for 4 main reasons:
1. It has been reliable for over 3 years (Vera3)
2. There are some great plugins available (PLEG being the the real differentiater).
3. If you want a simple set up, just use as it comes out of the box. If you want to go complicated or complex and you are willing to make the effort you can do that too, i.e. it is flexible.
4. Fantastic user community - ask a sensible question and you are bound to get the help you need.
Oh a PS: many people have commented that the old Vera3 enclosure looked like a piece of amateur made kit and the new, sleeker Vera Plus looks better. I have to disagree, the old Vera3 box is functional and you can see all the indicators when it is on a shelf - at a glance. The Vera Plus indicators are on the top of the unit and I have to pick it up and slant it towards me so I can see them. Picky I know, but I put functionality above sleek cosmetic design.”
“Everytime it tried to connect to my network the entire network crashed. Vesternet tech support and Micasa Verde tried to fix it and couldn't. I returned it for a refund.”
