Hello @Melih
I’ve only just heard about this news! Which I hope is good news.
I’ve been a Vera customer since around 2010 and I have purchased several different Vera units.
Overall I have generally been happy with Vera, though its not perfect, it has problems, but with the help of the Vera support team who I cannot really fault, as they have always fixed most of my serious issues, which is the only time I contact them, usually to do with Firmware updates gone wrong. One of the reasons why I stuck with Vera was the good technical support staff.
But there are been issues in the past and still today, the UI5 to UI7 migration several years ago was well a nightmare, I opted to build my system from scratch on UI7 rather than attempt the migration which hadn’t gone well for many others. UI7 firmware updates now are hit and miss, some have updated with no problems, others have gone badly wrong.
The UI7 web GUI in general is functional but needs improvement, as does the Vera mobile app, which I don’t use, on our Android phones and tablets I use the excellent 3rd party control app called Imperihome take a look at that !
Vera is very reliant on 3rd party developers and their plugins to fill the gaps in its product. Community developers of course are what we need, but they are filling in the gaps missing from what should already be part of the core Vera system, which is the problem.
You need to hire Richard Schaefer, without his plugins PLEG for logic operations, VeraAlerts for notifications and Vera Concierge for Google Home integration, my Vera would not be any where near as good. In fact I would have moved to another Home Automation platform by now, if it wasn’t for those plugins alone.
I have considered moving to Samsung SmartThings but their cloud dependency put me off, unlike Vera which runs locally without the Internet. But SmartThings has a larger range of Smart Home devices that it can integrate with, again mainly down to the community developers building device handlers.
Moving forward I would like Vera to:
- Work out the stability issues with firmware updates and the core system.
- Have a better web GUI and mobile app GUI and one that works with the various 3rd party plugins like the Imperihome app does.
- Quicker device integration in Vera for new Z-Wave and other smart home devices out on the market.
- Native Google Home and IFTTT integration and improved Alexa integration.
- Better support and help from the company for 3rd party developers, to build their plugins more easily and a better plugin market place.
I am happy to pay $100 for a controller hub and much more, if that hub is fast and has a good spec and is reliable and not cloud dependent.
A $20 controller that is slower and cannot support as many connected devices doesn’t interest me. I’ve never heard of eZLO before but I will have a further read of your website.
Thank you for your time and listening to your new customers.
Regards