Initial Vera Secure Observations, issues

Community Playground General Discussions
#1

Some initial observations, which I’ve sent to Support in an email:

  1. With the built in battery I don’t know how I’d reboot it if it locks up. Pulling the plug won’t do it.

  2. There’s a default “Vera Secure” app installed which creates a siren. Nifty, except it automatically treats every armed sensor trip as a burglary, and sounds the siren. Not cool, since I rely on some sensor states at times.

Otherwise it seems fine. Very fast. Curious to hear other’s impressions.

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#2

Already assuming the worst… Must have owned a few other veras before this. LOL

#3

Fool me 6,245 times, shame on you…

#4

Hi guys,

  1. To power cycle VeraSecure -1) Press the reset button, and keep it pressed for ~30 seconds → 2) Release the reset button → 3) Remove power → VeraSecure will shut down in about 5 seconds.

  2. Having a dedicated siren in your system, will do exactly the same if this is what is set under HouseModes. To manage this, you will have to edit HouseModes settings.

#5

Thanks John. Received a quick email back from Support with the same info.

I’m new to UI7 (had reliable UI5 units for years) so the concept of the automatic siren was foreign.

#6

I have every sensor set to disarmed, and never arm them. All that does IMHO is send unneeded messages to the MiCasaVerde event server. Why would you arm a sensor if you are NOT wanting to send a security alert (hence the siren might be expected)? I don’t think I would ever use the VeraSecure siren as intended, as I have a DSC 1832 integrated with Vera that performs the security function and has multiple sirens, but I could see using the VeraSecure siren with Leak Detectors…

#7

I have every sensor set to disarmed, and never arm them. All that does IMHO is send unneeded messages to the MiCasaVerde event server. Why would you arm a sensor if you are NOT wanting to send a security alert (hence the siren might be expected)? I don’t think I would ever use the VeraSecure siren as intended, as I have a DSC 1832 integrated with Vera that performs the security function and has multiple sirens, but I could see using the VeraSecure siren with Leak Detectors…[/quote]

I have some sensors that are used for lighting rooms. They are armed at a certain time of day, and disarmed when we go to bed. The armed state check is necessary because several of these sensors are in the line of sight of overnight trips to the bathroom. Don’t want them tripping in that case, and that isn’t time of day dependent. Likewise with some staircase sensors. If the movie scene is set in the theater, I don’t want motion on the stairs to turn the overheads on.

I know there are other ways to gerry rig this using virtual switches and such, but armed/disarmed is simple and reliable.

#8

I’m noticing a slow but gradual battery degradation over the first week. In the Vera interface I now see 91% remaining, while connected to a powered outlet. I have not lost power but still the battery seems to be slowly losing charge and is not re-charging.
Any others who have been seeing this?

#9

Hello Pascal,

Please submit an email ticket to support@getvera.com, with the SN and remote access enabled, so they can have a look at this.

#10

[quote=“pascalw, post:8, topic:196355”]I’m noticing a slow but gradual battery degradation over the first week. In the Vera interface I now see 91% remaining, while connected to a powered outlet. I have not lost power but still the battery seems to be slowly losing charge and is not re-charging.
Any others who have been seeing this?[/quote]

I have the same - but since last night it’s now back up to 100. It seems to stop charging when full, then wait until some threshold value until charging again. Doesn’t appear to trickle charge while at 100%. Not sure if bug or feature.

#11

As a follow up - it hit 91% last night and that seems to have triggered the re-charge as this morning the system is back at 99% charge.

#12

Having charge and discharge levels rather than a continuous trickle charge seems to be the way to improve battery life. My laptop allows me to adjust the trigger points. Does the Secure have these adjustable?

#13

[quote=“jaccord, post:10, topic:196355”][quote=“pascalw, post:8, topic:196355”]I’m noticing a slow but gradual battery degradation over the first week. In the Vera interface I now see 91% remaining, while connected to a powered outlet. I have not lost power but still the battery seems to be slowly losing charge and is not re-charging.
Any others who have been seeing this?[/quote]

I have the same - but since last night it’s now back up to 100. It seems to stop charging when full, then wait until some threshold value until charging again. Doesn’t appear to trickle charge while at 100%. Not sure if bug or feature.[/quote]

This sounds like the logical answer. But since there is no manual to support this, and Vera themselves (atleast not this one) doesn’t even know how it’s supposed to behave.

[quote=“John M., post:9, topic:196355”]Hello Pascal,

Please submit an email ticket to support@getvera.com, with the SN and remote access enabled, so they can have a look at this.[/quote]

Everyone is just figuring it all out for themselves as usual. Keep up the good work on the forum!

#14

One other note about the power cycle method : it obviously can’t work when remote, which is the primary use case for one of my units. Luckily, the battery only lasts four hours, so eventually it will go down hard if I kill power to it remotely.

#15

[quote=“integlikewhoa, post:13, topic:196355”][quote=“jaccord, post:10, topic:196355”][quote=“pascalw, post:8, topic:196355”]I’m noticing a slow but gradual battery degradation over the first week. In the Vera interface I now see 91% remaining, while connected to a powered outlet. I have not lost power but still the battery seems to be slowly losing charge and is not re-charging.
Any others who have been seeing this?[/quote]

I have the same - but since last night it’s now back up to 100. It seems to stop charging when full, then wait until some threshold value until charging again. Doesn’t appear to trickle charge while at 100%. Not sure if bug or feature.[/quote]

This sounds like the logical answer. But since there is no manual to support this, and Vera themselves (atleast not this one) doesn’t even know how it’s supposed to behave.

[quote=“John M., post:9, topic:196355”]Hello Pascal,

Please submit an email ticket to support@getvera.com, with the SN and remote access enabled, so they can have a look at this.[/quote]

Everyone is just figuring it all out for themselves as usual. Keep up the good work on the forum![/quote]

A little bit of irony didn’t hurt anybody but being a new hardware, we just want to make sure any possible report is thoroughly investigated.
Indeed the discharge until 91% is a battery protection mechanism and a lot of R&D has been put into this feature.

#16

I upgraded to the secure from the plus…I have some problems…At first could not generate an account but the techs said it was on there end and fixed that problem…Now seems like this secure is going offline once and a while…I cant depend on it…Maby they will send some fixes soon

#17

I thought there were still known issues with the network setup on the VeraSecure with the latest 7.0.29 - at least with the Beta. The list of “Known Issues” has been purged from the release notes? I think they had to do with DHCP and Wi-Fi. I believe even when you set a static IP it still shows DHCP (but you can see the static, so minor GUI issue). When I first received my Secure, you couldn’t fully disable the wi-fi without calling in a ticket, but I think that was fixed.

Don’t get me wrong - the VeraSecure needs some love. But mine is rock-solid stable.

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