Richard Developer - RTS Services Inc. GONE?

I am a big fan of @RichardTSchaefer plugins and tools. I have paid for and used Vera Alerts, PLEG and Vera Concierge. But starting last summer, he has been quite. I really hope nothing personal happened to him at all. But I noticed my Vera Concierge stopped working in the last few weeks. I assumed issues, and gave it time. But its still not working. I then looked to upgrade, triage, etc. As I went out to his web sites, I noticed this week, that they are all gone. He is not on the forum and now his supports sites are gone.

http://rts-services.com/Vera/Plugin/PLEG/

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If the creator has abandoned them, I am nervous to keep using them, as it could be possible back door to someone. Anyone else have issues or concerns? Or heard from him in the last 8 months?

Again, big fan of his, great tools and great support before.

Hopefully he’ll come back. Have been using PLEG extensively and that’s been an excellent plugin.

I have noticed his absence, but am not panicking yet. Obviously I cannot, and will not, go to a Vera firmware that does not work perfectly with PLEG. In other words, all the recapitalization of Vera via Elzo won’t mean a thing to me if PLEG doesn’t still work. I am watching Reactor as a possible substitute, but PLEG is what turns my Vera from a toy to a real home automation system.

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PLEG is crucial for a complete home automation solution using Vera. If PLEG ever stops working, Vera will be dead to me.

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Reactor is a perfect substitute I think, the version 3.0 (altough still beta) is pretty flexible & powerfull !!

I also verified that the licensing server/portal is still up for PLEG, so at least that is still up and working.

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That’s good to know. I was thinking of buying another license to split my 4 PLEG devices into smaller chunks for readability purposes.

Reactor is a perfect substitute.

It is good to hear the support for Reactor. And I think I will install it on a secondary Vera to test.

Even if it can replicate all the functionality of PLEG, however, it would take a long time to convert all the logic I have been building for the past six years. So important PLEG and VeraAlerts make it into UI8…

This is EXACTLY the reason I never went with PLEG and I avoid plugins as much as I can. I learned to code LUA and I haven’t looked back. Even if I switch to a totally different device, I can just rewrite in the new native language the same logic. It may be coincidental, but I’ve also enjoyed a relative VERY stable environment compared to most.

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Total agreement with you @jlind. This has been my approach as well. The learning curve is steep but when I looked at PLEG, I felt a bit overwhelmed and “out of control” and would have required some learning as well.

PLEG captures the logic. It just abstracts the code and scheduling.

This thread is off-track. RTS is one of the longest tenured Plug-In authors and a very valuable resource into the inner workings of Vera. So a potential loss to the community whether you use his plug-ins or not.

Again agree on RTS as founding developer for Vera. I think PLEG will work but the two I use lot is Vera alets and Google home integration. As these have back end services to work, I fear they will go dead, as my Google integration stopped a few weeks ago. I really hope core Vera gets Google home integration Doo , I rely on this daily with my home automation.

Google turn off downstairs
Google open garage door
Google wake up kids

There are things lua code can’t do; specifically survive luup restarts which was the bane of many a vera.

Plus PLEG had lower system load if you had several timed events (i.e. relock door 3 minutes after it closes) because it evaluated timed events in batches instead of having several scripts paused with a WAIT command.

I hope Richard is just busy dealing with hosting problems .

PM him. Or use his previously-published email addresses and reach out to him to find out what’s going on. Honestly, my first concern would be for his personal well-being. We are, after all, a community. But a squiz at his account here indicates he has not posted once or visited once since the transition to Discourse, and his last activity in the old forums is dated Feb 13, and has not posted since August 2018, and none of that bodes well.

Agree I am first concerned about his well being, as this was not normal for him. I have emailed him a few times in the last month and late last year. I was looking to buy more from him. Buy never got a response. At this point it is worrisome.

OK, gang. I heard from Richard, and he’s fine, just busy. He did say he would be doing some upgrades to VeraAlerts to handle changes in Google’s APIs. He didn’t mention any timeline other than “soon.”

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That is good news, glad he is good. Does he know his website is gone? All 404’s now.

@kyle.dawson I am still able to use Vera Concierge - no service interruptions so far. I have it installed on Synology, though.

@vicw Not sure what is wrong with my Vera Concierge. No errors in logs, or when I give voice command. Even confirms it is doing in via Google Home. Just nothing happens. When I test all the connectivity in the Web page for it, it all works. No issues. Not sure how to trouble shot without any errors to look thru.