Vera Plus dead after power failure - only power LED on

Hi,

yesterday I had a power failure at home. All the other devices seem to work again after that except of my vera plus.
Current status: only the power LED ist on and the controller is not found by the router.

I tried to reset the controller (6-times pressing), but that does nothing. Plugging power on/off also resulted in the only power LED status.

Is there anything else I can do to get the Vera Plus back to life? How about connecting directly to PC and SSH into the unit (a step by step instruction would be fine - I haven’t done this before)?

Sorry to hear about this :frowning:

If this is an ongoing issue, our tech team should be able to help you with this. I’ll give them a heads up about this and if you didn’t submit a ticket or call already make sure you do so we can get you back on track ASAP. +1 866 966 2272 or email support@getvera.com

I’ve also created a ticket four days ago, but without response so far. I’ve read about successfully resetting by pushing 8 times the reset button which I can try next. But that was a case after firmware update…

Short update:
Pushing 8 times the reset button didn’t work. Support gave me a few steps to try out (reset network + hard reset). That did no change. The power LED was the only one on all the time. So I’ve asked for a remote session with chat to carry out the recovery process I’ve read in another thread. That was three days ago…

One week has passed without any reaction from support. The first thermostat has already noticed there’s no controller online after battery replacement and can’t be controlled any more (at valve fully open of course). I’m afraid I don’t have enough old thermostats to replace all the Z-Wave thermostats if more of them fail :neutral_face:

@Sorin…

C

1 Like

Two days ago I had a remote session with support. We tried some hard resets and accessing the controller directly via LAN without success. During all steps the only LED that glowed was the power led. We were convinced that the device could no longer be saved :worried:

Then a few hours later I took a look again at the controller. All LEDs were on and internet/service LED were blinking :flushed: So I reconnected the Plus to network and the controller was reachable again!

I don’t know what happened but the controller has revived itself. Very strange. My confidence in this controller drops again :neutral_face:

I very much doubt this is a controller issue. You took a power hit that almost certainly fried the electronics in your AC adapter wall-wart. I have seen these exact same symptoms in MANY electronic devices. Your wall wart is delivering BARELY enough current to run the Vera. It will likely fail soon.

Back in the Olden Days before this virus horse pucky they had these junk stores run by this company called Goodwill. I would regularly cruise through those and pick up “broken” wifi routers and so on for around $5. Then dig through their bins and pick out an assortment of A/C adapters. In general I could always get a match that would work. Maybe one day those stores will open again. Sigh.

So you would suggest replacing the power adapter with a new one with some more power reserves?

The power ratings on the wall warts are usually in the “fantasy” range. A wall wart rated for 3 amps for example might possibly deliver 3 amps - for about 15 minutes before some internal component fries. I never consider power ratings on these things as anything more than “somewhat advisory”

It is impossible to use a plain volt meter to measure for proper output. The only way to do it is bench test with a voltmeter, an ammeter, an oscilloscope and a variable load. Wall warts will do strange things under load. Voltages will fall off as load approaches max rated current, or output that looks DC smooth on the scope at 15% rated power will be disgusting with all kinds of square waves and spikes at 70% rated power. And this is assuming the wall wart is “working” as defined by the manufacturer - ones that have failed due to age, or shoddy components are all over the map.

You also have situations where a wall wart that supplies noisy power will work with one device and not another - I’ve had wall warts that generated power that was so bad that it would interfere with the CPUs in the devices, the wall wart would work for years with 1 device with no problems then cause another device to lock up - because the other device maybe used a faster CPU.

Unfortunately all these things are made in China and there is no branding whatsoever in that industry, no way to trace back to any specific company whether one is better than another, you just gotta keep trying different ones. That is why I collect them I have a cardboard box with about a dozen different ones. I carry a pocket volt ohmmeter with me and when I find a wall wart at a junk store that is cheap (as in $3 or less) and is a popular voltage (12 volts) and supplies 3amps or more I’ll test it right there and buy it if I get 12v out of it.

One of these days someone needs to build an Arduino circuit and program for testing these things, it would be easy - just ask the user for the rating off the wall wart, then when plug the wall wart in, and plug the power outlet of the wall wart into a circuit connected to the Arduino which then runs several load patterns against the wall wart and sees if the output voltage and current properly tracks the load.