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What is Home Assistant?

2/4/2021

 
Picture
Home Assistant is an open-source home automation project developed by a worldwide community of very clever people, with a strong focus on performance, reliability and protecting your privacy. If you’ve spent any amount of time researching smart home tech and the world of the “Internet of Things”, chances are, you will have seen a reference to Home Assistant somewhere, partly due to the vast number of system integrations it can support.

​Home Assistant has long been a powerful force amongst smart home aficionados, but it is sometimes criticised for being too complicated for the “average Joe” due to the product’s heavy reliance on code (YAML) for its configurations. However, over the past year or so, the developers of Home Assistant began moving a lot of this configuration to the web UI in an effort to greatly simplify the system – for all users. Thanks to this effort, tasks which used to be technically demanding can now be accomplished with the click of a few buttons.

Today, Home Assistant has reached a significant milestone in user-friendliness, and it’s only getting better. Combine this with an ever-growing list of supported smart home platforms, advanced automation tools, blazing fast performance and a rapid development lifecycle, it can arguably rival the features and capabilities of any commercially available product in this space.​

​In this article, we want to highlight some of the reasons why we think Home Assistant is such a fantastic product, and discuss some of the unique features it brings to the modern smart home… ​

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The New Vera Mobile Dashboard

7/12/2019

 
New Vera Mobile App Dashboard
Vera has released a brand new, fully customisable dashboard for their mobile apps. The changes are still in the beta stages of testing but you can become an early adopter if you want to give the new dashboard a spin right now (see links below).

Some of the key features include;
  • Configurable scenes, cameras and device lists for faster one-touch access
  • Simple drag and drop re-ordering of elements
  • Customisable background image
  • Easy access to your most recent alerts and house modes

Everything on the new dashboard is now more neatly presented and takes up less space, making things more easily accessible at a glance. 

To learn more or to become a member of the Vera Mobile Beta Test Program, follow the links below;
  • Android Beta Program
  • Apple iOS Beta Program
  • Vera Mobile User Forum

Vera + Reactor = AWESOME!

21/5/2019

 
Vera Smart Home
There’s been some very big changes at Vera Control of late.

​As most Vera users will now know, a new version of UI7 firmware dropped last month (7.0.29 GA). This is the first update since the company was 
acquired by Ezlo (and in almost a year!), so needless to say, our expectations were high.
We've been running with the new version since its beta release about two months ago and we’re very pleased to announce that this is the most stable and performant UI7 ever! The list of bug fixes and enhancements is vast and you can get full details here. A worthy upgrade for sure.

​From our perspective though, the most exciting Vera news in recent memory hasn’t been about company acquisitions or UI7 improvements, it’s been about the amazing contributions made to the platform by Patrick H. Rigney; a.k.a. rigpapa (as he’s known in the Vera community).

​Patrick has single-handedly redefined the way we use Vera through a collection of ingenious software addons (plugins) which will transform your humble controller into a home automation beast! All of his excellent plugins are available via the Vera app store and directly from this github repo. However, without a doubt, the one plugin every Vera user needs to know about is, Reactor.

Reactor is the most essential plugin Vera has ever known. It can help you build powerful smart home logic effortlessly and without needing to write a single line of code. After setting up your first Reactor device, you will wonder how you ever lived without it.

​The kinds of things possible with Reactor are limitless and we are yet to encounter a home automation scenario it couldn’t handle. You can read more about its capabilities in this wiki and there’s now also a dedicated YouTube channel of instructional “how-to” videos to help get you started (with more promised in time).
Vera Ezlo Reactor
Reactor Status Screen
We can’t oversell this. If you’ve never tried Reactor or any of rigpapa’s plugins, please, do yourself a favour! Here's a few others we rely on:-
  • DelayLight – For creating advanced automated lighting scenarios (for lights and switches).
  • Switchboard – For creating every kind of virtual switch you’ll ever need including virtual dimmers and tri-state switches. An absolute must-have plugin!
  • DeusExMachina – For giving your home that “lived-in” look while you’re away or on holidays. An essential security feature for any smart home.

We should also mention that all these plugins are free (unbelievable) but please, if you find them helpful, consider making a donation to help support his fantastic efforts.
​Until next time, happy automating!

Vera vs. Fibaro: Z-Wave Gateway Comparison

12/6/2018

 
VeraPlus vs. Fibaro Home Center Z-Wave Gateway Controllers
​We’re often asked about the differences between Vera and Fibaro Home Center and which system is the best. Fortunately, both VeraPlus and Fibaro Home Center 2 are among the most popular Z-Wave gateways in the world, so either product will deliver great results. They do, however, differ in several ways so it's worth understanding the key differences, especially if you're in the market for a new Z-Wave controller and need some help deciding which device will best fit your needs. 

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How to use Fibaro Swipe with Vera

17/8/2016

 
How to use Fibaro Swipe with Vera
Z-Wave Zone recently featured a great guide describing how to integrate Fibaro Swipe with Vera. It's a question we get asked a lot so we thought we'd share the link with our customers. Nice review as well! Read the full article.

For more information about Fibaro Swipe, please contact us!

InControl HA Version 4 Review

29/1/2016

 
InControl HA is an affordable, simple-to-use Z-Wave home automation software solution for the Windows environment. Version 4 of InControl HA has been in full-swing for a little while now so we thought we'd present a mini review of a few of our favourite features. This latest version is mostly evolutionary - building on the success of previous releases - but it does introduce a number of fixes and enhancements which will be sure to please both new and existing users alike. 
InControl version 4.0 Dashboard - Z-Wave Home Automation
InControl HA Pro v4 Dashboard

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What's the Best Mobile App for Vera?

8/8/2015

 
There are loads of Vera compatible control apps available; some better than others. To find the best of the bunch, you could try to wade through this very exhaustive selection, or, simply choose from our recommended short list below:- 
ImperiHome smart home app for Android
1. ImperiHome (Android & iOS)
imperihome.com

First up there's ImperiHome. This app wins our vote for the best of the best! It will not only interface with all Vera controllers but a plethora of other systems as well, including Fibaro Home Center 2, MPEG/h264 cameras, Philips HUE and many more. You can read about the full list of features here but what we love most about this app is that the UI is super-fast and completely configurable. And, when paired with the Vera ImperiHome plugin, you can also control certain aspects of the app from within your scenes.
Download ImperiHome on Google Play
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Vera UI7 Review

30/4/2015

 
Vera UI7 is the 7th version of firmware available for Vera’s line of smart home controllers. It was released as an optional download last year and has now become the default version for all new controllers sold. It's designed to be more user friendly than its UI5 predecessor (the short-lived UI6 was really just a stepping stone to UI7). It offers simple to follow wizards for adding new devices and setting up scenes, special home "modes" for simplifying certain tasks and it also utilises a re-vamped access control system which is designed to be faster and more reliable when connecting to your Vera remotely. There’s a new Geofencing feature which allows the system to know who is arriving or leaving home based on mobile phone location, a streamlined dashboard view, support for the latest devices utilising Z-Wave’s newest Gen5 chipset plus much more.
Vera UI7
Vera UI7 Dashboard

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