About 6 months ago I gave up on Vera and started transitioning to an ISY994ZIR

6 months later, I cant say enough good things about this product and the support team

I went through some hick ups with Zwave 2 way and getting thermostats to pair

It forced me to fix Zwave issues that I didn't even know I had thanks to Vera not letting me know.

I have only opened ONE tech support ticket and was expecting a delayed email, tech support CALLED me 3 minutes later

I now have it working with a bunch of Insteon devices that I wasn't even controlling before, talks to my Brultech Gem to turn on/ off devices and my Amazon Echo responds to "Food network on" by Amazon to Bridge to IP2IR to change the channel

Big WAF on that one

Tomorrow the Autellis bridge goes in to "Turn Waterfall on" for the pool

It is KEY to managing my on peak power demand - I know am banking excess on peak solar power for the winter thanks to the control

Great product, great team, and  everything runs smooth for me, although I am still fielding tech support calls from friends with a Vera

..Barry

 

 

Barry,

 

That is really great to hear you're happy with the hardware transition. As you noted, service after the sale is first rate and the team takes an active participation in the forums.

 

Glad you have been able to shave off a few KWH from that household.

 

Ha . . .

A "Few KW's" ??

I have a 4006 Sq/ft house with 13 tons of AC in Arizona where it is 113F today

Between switching to a rate with 8 cent KW's EXCEPT from 3-6 weekdays where they are 36 cents, precooling the house before 3 (thanks to control from the ISY) and adding 4KW of solar with 2/3 of it facing west, my July electric bill went from $755 2 years ago to $310 this year   Budget payment plan (same payment monthly year round) has gone from $355 to $137   My math says that's saving $2600 per year. That's with a sub 10K$ investment in Solar, ISY, thermostats, Zwave etc.

Sub 4 year payback on solar with enhancements ??  that's a hell of a ROI,  and with no family complaints.

..Barry

A "Few KW's" ??

I have a 4006 Sq/ft house with 13 tons of AC in Arizona where it is 113F today

Between switching to a rate with 8 cent KW's EXCEPT from 3-6 weekdays where they are 36 cents, precooling the house before 3 (thanks to control from the ISY) and adding 4KW of solar with 2/3 of it facing west, my July electric bill went from $755 2 years ago to $310 this year   Budget payment plan (same payment monthly year round) has gone from $355 to $137   My math says that's saving $2600 per year. That's with a sub 10K$ investment in Solar, ISY, thermostats, Zwave etc.

Sub 4 year payback on solar with enhancements ??  that's a hell of a ROI,  and with no family complaints.

..Barry

 

Barry,

 

Absolutely, a 4 year ROI on something that large of an investment is just good business sense. On year five its just smooth sailing and reaping the rewards of that investment you initially took on.

 

Now, go tell Alexa to bring me a cold one!

 

Ha . . .

Edited August 15, 201510 yr by Teken

Out of morbid curiosity, I spent an hour tonight on the Vera forum. Looks like UI5 is still mothballed with it's problems and UI7 is still a turd.

In addition there seems to be a theme of Vera hardware dying.

Seems the Vera folks tried to be everything to everybody, and now are living with that decision.

Thanks again Michael and team, and no I dont work for UDI

..Barry

Barry, based on your post, I took a stroll down memory lane to my prior HA package's forum, that I migrated from over a year ago. 

 

I found a thread querying users, like I was, as to why they hadn't upgraded to the latest base HA package version,  There were 2 basic issues:

• The developers of the HA package led us into Insteon in the 2005 timeframe, but over-extended in zwave develpment and essentially dropped insteon and selling insteon products. Its further confusing that they let a great developer take over the insteon plugin, but then released a very minimalist insteon plugin that is not supported. 
   
• The process to upgrade to the latest version of base package was the same as starting over. So I treated is as such and investigated the alternatives.

I know that there are hard tradeoffs, its how they are managed that matters. Over a year later, its still clear that choosing and migrating to the ISY was the best decision I could have made. 

 

Paul

THANK YOU ALL! These posts mean so much to us and it's pretty much what we strive for. I appreciate it very much.

 

With kind regards,

Michel