New Smart Home Vera models presented on CES 2015

I suggest that you have a look at:
http://www.missingremote.com/news/2015-01-14/veracontrol-ces-2015
to receive a glimpse of what kind of smart home hubs that is coming from Vera in the future. The Vera Edge is something you can pick up already today.
On this link you can see the diffrences in the models:
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15/01/10/ebbb9d3f93ea60006eaf9b03ad1e2dc9.jpg
I assume the Vera Pro is burried at this phase, but the future looks very bright :-)

VeraEdge Home Controller

VeraEdge has just been released by our friends at getvera.com. The main difference compared to the "old" Veras is the support for Z-wave plus (500) series, thats the new z-wave chips presented last year. This is the first of the Vera series that seems to support them.
The user interface is the new improved UI7 and expect shipping soon.
Take a look at your next home automation controller here:
http://getvera.com/controllers/veraedge/
This could be the Christmas present you been waiting for, unless you put your money down on a Sonos multi room speaker and connect it to the Vera you probably already have...

VeraEdge Home Controller
Hardware
CPU: 600MHz MIPS SoC
Flash Memory: NAND 128MB
Memory: DDR2 128MB
USB Port: 1
WAN Port: 1
Wireless: Z-Wave Plus™ and 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi
Dimensions
4.55in x 3.13in x 1.2in (HxWxD)
Certifications
FCC, CE, RoHS, Z-Wave Plus
Power Supply
Input: AC 100-240VAC, 50-60Hz
Output: DC 12V/1A

Hong Kong Electronics Fair

The Hong Kong Electronics Fair (spring edition) had this year several stands containing home automation devices.
One very common thing is that several of the manufacturers seems to belive that a non standard protocol is better than using something that can speak to more devices than just their own. Maybe licence prices had something to do with it but then on the other hand there was so much stuff speaking Bluethooth LE there. On the exhibition you could find also well known protocols like Z-wave, Zigbee and X10.
Everspring was presenting their whole area of z-wave devices. Unfortunately no news for this year, but there was some vaugue promises about plug in sockets ala Fibaro style.
Red shield http://www.redshieldsecurity.com/ had also some devices that was market with z-wave but I did not manage to get more information from the staff on-site.

Home Confort uses RF protocol and promised possibility to control up to 24 RF devices. The devices looks very similar in size and shape to the Z-wave / Zigbee devices we have learned to know.

Fibaro news.

http://zwaveforum.se/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=4876

Fibaro seems to be going all in with voice control for your home automation project. The discussion board zwaverforum has something that looks like press material from Fibaro promising several new devices. What strikes me is that it seems like most of them support voice control. And could connect to your wired burglar alarm also. Another nice device is the Player, that I hope will work in same way as Sonos different multi room audio system Play, but connected directly to your home automation z-wave network, though Sonos is supported with Vera with the app in the app-store.

Some of the new devices seems to be able to work stand-alone without any of the Fibaro controllers.

The Stack a box controller

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1561203377/the-stack-box-a-smart-home-controller?ref=category_popular

This controller stacks a home automation controller with multiple radios including e.g. Bluetooth 4 into a box that also will double as a storage area unit (a.k.a. SAN). If the kick starter project will fly will soon have yet another HA controller to compete with the billions of homes out there!

getpiper the new Z-wave controller

http://getpiper.com/ is now available. It's a z-wave controller, camera, two-way audio, siren and environment controller in one device! Price is tempting and the look is very nice.

Fibaro lite vs Vera3

Fibaro has decided to go (almost) heads on with MiCasa now offering a step in home automation model called Fibaro Lite. 
The diffrence in euro is 279,98€ for Fibaro vs 238,00€ for Vera3. Though I have not tested the Fibaro Home Centre Light I noticed in the small print that it does not support "scripting language for advanced scene control" like it's bigger and more expensive version. I'm not sure how big diffrence this is in real life... Leave a comment!

New Vera Model, U16 and new App to control the goodies.

Sometimes you find the latest news in your twitter feed:

 

·   @jacksonj04  Vera Mobile ( http://t.co/cKtJeVIWhA ) is compatible with UI5, where MMS Vera ( http://t.co/HgtP48brmi ) is designed to work w/ UI6. 4 days ago 

 

 Vera Mobile is the new client for your iPhone, Ipad or Android. It works very well and has suberb respons. Anything new for Windows Phone, nah...

 

·   @docduv  VeraLite G ( http://t.co/EFbfiF6cjL ) has the all the same features and performance, just in a slightly more compact chassis.

 

VeraLite G is even smaller than Vera Lite and connects straight to the brand new U16 user interface, something that the 100.000 rest of us just have to wait for... 

 

Android phone or Tablet as camera & Firmware 2.2.1 Renesas Haipad

If you already have a tablet or a android phone and might be looking for another cam, look no further, you can install something like:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.acontech.android.SmartWebCam

and then you suddenly have another network available IP cam. For nothing!

But as always it seems to be a lot what type of Android you have. So far I have not been able to get any versions working on my Haipad http://868mhz.blogspot.com/2011/10/haipad-m9-jextab-a9-time2touch-hc701a.html

I tried to go one step up with the firmware from the Renesas 2.2 to 2.3 but it seems like that comes with some nasty bugs. One of them is that some WLAN access points does not work. So it was a no go after several attempts.And then findin out to the Firmware I had previously installed and blogged about here http://868mhz.blogspot.fi/2012/07/android-tablet-haipad-m9-firmware-update.html
was not anymore available. Seems like the company behind this pad is no more. But look and behold and after the long weekend of attempts I stumbled upon this link:
http://www.bergfiles.com/i/bf45106ec5h32i0
And listing the firmware:

RENA3-FW-0616-Modded-FullMarket.zip
The installation was clearly different from the other that I tested but all side buttons work and I can select to root it if needed (still don't really know the exact reason, right now)

Still no IP cam of my Haipad :-(

Revolv, the smartest home automation hub?

Here is a hub device that hosts 10! different radio transceivers but somehow I personally feel it misses one point that other HA devices have. A huge support for different devices, the list is a bit short right now but I home it will be greatly extended after the release. Good idea to have one device to rule them all but it must be better than the remotes that ones promised that…

http://revolv.com/

Extend the range on your Vera z-wave network (and ruin the warranty)

Found a interesting post in foreign language how to extend the Z-wave network and install a external antenna on your Vera and Vera lite.
They even links to the right parts in Ebay.
http://www.byggahus.se/forum/teknik/201788-z-wave-da-haus-hemautomation.html#post1791459

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/300700727389
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/300382080567

Z-Wave Gateway Zipabox-G1 by Zipato

 

I received an email where they ‘promise’ that this new Z-wave gateway “automatically starts talking to all connected devices in the house and connects them to the cloud so that the user can control them using tablets, smart phones, computers or TVs”. Not a bad promise! If only some of it was true. But probably a very good gateway that more technically supports both Z-wave and Zigbee.

Visit for example  http://store.zwaveeurope.com/product_info.php?products_id=12254&XTCsid=9b4cf0c6b5bac03eaf1488b49abd15f0 for some more details and a price.

Zipato Z-wave home automation controller

The ZIPATO Z-wave home automation controller is the last in line. It has very impressive features / price. No info so far how much you have to pay for the extra features but the basic security package comes for free. The price of the controller is located a bit lower than the Micasaverdes Vera3.
Check out their impressive offer on http://www.zipato.com/default.aspx

Vera3 2013, Product of the year winner.

http://www.electronichouse.com/product/details/vera3/

Nice when something you have bought actually is good enough to get an award! Make you believe you got the right stuff! The Z-wave Home Automation controller Vera3 received the Product of the Year 2013 from the Electronic house!

Home Genie. Your Raspberry Pie Z-wave home automation package

At http://sourceforge.net/projects/homegenie/ they presented home genie. This is a package that might really rock the HA, Smart Home market in it’s foundation. It’s a “Open Source Home Automation Server Project” that not only looks great. It’s also available directly for your favorite device the Raspberry Pie!

If my Micasaverdes Vera would need a replace some day this is something I would definitely look into.

Jump over there and support them! (So it will be fully supported the day I might test it)

Fibaro Z-wave movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K35uFXoa5c0&feature=player_embedded

I liked to promote this nice movie from Fibaro that shows some of the options available with Z-wave technology.

Vera2 vs Vera3

I just hooked up a Vera3 that I will use for the cottage. Installation was very easy, maybe due to the experience with the Vera2. Did I notice any differences? Maybe the Vera3 is sightly quicker, but everything else is very much the same. I think the Vera3 is a bit up the price range since a Vera lite would do for the needs I have. But it's good to be able to grow also since I have no clue what I need to hook up in the future :-).

Defa home

Norwegian company Defa (mostly famous for the car heaters and car battery chargers in European Nordic part of the world) http://www.hyttami.no/ or in Swedish http://www.defahome.se has launched a HA system based on some wireless protocol that can turn on and off lights, heating and have a module for presence.

The good thing is that the service is based on GSM modem that work with low cost over whole Europe and it seems to be dead simple to set-up.

The bad thing is that every module has basically the same price as z-wave modules but there is like 3 of them to select from, compared to the 700 z-wave devices certified right now but they provide support for you if you need help to connect to a device.

Oh, did I mentioned that they have a yearly fee of about 100€…

Square Connect SQ Home Controller

SQ has now started to sell a beta version of the Square Connect SQ Home Controller that will ship for $199
http://www.squareconnect.com/controller_preorder.html
It features a Z-wave chip plus IR and has a nice user interface.

Vitrum Controller

There seems to be some slick designs out now, to some very design like prices. The
Z-Wave Vitrum Home Master 60 Router has a price that fits any Pro Soccer player as the controller lands on 2K.
http://www.vesternet.com/z-wave/lighting-sockets/vitrum-home-control-c-295_299_380.html?p=shop
The iPad interface for this Z-wave controller is very nice!








Even the buttons are so nice looking that you can hang them in the entrance of B&O!