DaveL17 wrote:@Seeker
I am in the process of evaluating alternatives to Vera myself. I recently had the Z-Wave chip fail on my Vera 2, and am trying to decide whether to go Indigo or a new Vera unit. So far, my experiences have been extremely positive with Indigo and am leaning heavily that way (the numbers below are mine and aren't referencing your OP).
Vera served me well for almost two years and it is a good, simple device once configured. It was a good move for me at the time when I picked up about 50 z-wave devices during the Radio Shack clearance a couple of years ago. The mobile ios access was new to me as I never did pay for HS touch. My reason for changing was mainly flexibility and expansion. Vera has limits, and making changes is a somewhat slow, cumbersome trial-and-error process.
1. Indigo runs way faster than UI5 on a Vera 2. I suppose that some (most?) of this could be chalked up to the fact that I have Indigo running on a Mini with considerably more horsepower than my Vera 2. And I don't mean just the UI. My schedules in Indigo are lightning compared to scenes in Vera.
Yes, it is almost instant. I, too, purchased a dedicated mini. It is extremely fast.
2. I'm using a Z-Stick S2 and found the inclusion process to be exceptionally simple, but did have some struggles with the first few devices being included into Indigo--seeming with Indigo communicating with the devices (the first device was less than 6 feet away and the second less than 8 feet). However, as I continued to add devices to my network, inclusion became much more stable and quicker.
Honestly, I was planning to go HS3, so I purchased the z-troller. I'm not sure what advantages it has over the z-stick (if any), but it is a pleasure to use. I have not noticed any network errors, whereas my vera would lose devices periodically after the nightly heals. Time will tell on the z-troller, and I'm not sure if indigo has any optimization tools available. Honestly, I don't want to fool with any of that unless it becomes an issue.
4. With Indigo, I miss the ability to set device parameters the way you can in UI5--but I understand that this is being considered for Indigo in the future. I would very much like to see that.
You mean like GE dimmers to instant on/off? Yes, that was nice in vera. I had all my dimmers instant on/off.
6. I'm struggling with Control Pages, but I'm sure that I will get there. Seeing what others have devised makes me think it's my thick skull that is the barrier here.
I have a couple of simple ones set up, mainly for DSC statuses. My favorite vera ios app was homewave. It is an amazing app. I'd love to see something like that for indigo. However, the native iOS app and the basic web pages are simple and efficient.
So far I'm extremely pleased with the overall experience. I don't need hundreds of plugins. Just the few important ones. And the scripting possibilities seem very powerful.