Well, its been a week since I received my Vera from Mi Casa Verde. I wish I could share some exciting stories about how Green my home is and how easy it was to use... sadly that couldn't be further from the truth. I've spent countless hours on their wiki and forum trying to get answers from anybody who knows why this thing doesn't work with any of my Z-Wave devices despite their guarantee of compatibility. Nothing. It just blinks. Its a $300 nigh light. Oh wait, it does act like an 802.11g WiFi router.
Sent Friday afternoon, 1/29/2010
I am so sorry for your frustration! Our tech guys are working around the clock this week to release a new firmware and completely new flash-based user interface. So, they may be a bit behind on tech support requests. Hang in there for a bit longer and we will solve your problems. If we cant get it working, you can ship Vera back for a full refund, but I know with a little more time we can troubleshoot your issues and regain your confidence.
I will forward your request to support, and check back with you next week to make sure you have been helped. Have a good weekend!
I waited until Monday evening, 2/01/2010
Well, its been one week since your product arrived at my house. I am still unable to pair this device and get it to work with ANY of my z-wave compatible devices. Nobody from Tech Support has contacted me. I've submitted requests from the website and from within the Vera unit (enabling Remote Access too). It might be my dongle in which case you guys could just send me a new one, but unfortunately nobody from Tech Support responds to my posts on the Forum and I have not received any other communication either.
I would share your excitement about the upcoming firmware updates if my Vera unit actually did ANYTHING more than take up space. The dongle just blinks when plugged into the Vera unit and never finds any of my devices when I go through the steps in the instructions.
My question to you, how does a company sustain healthy growth if they are unable to support the people who want to use their product? I don't want to send this back, I want it to work the way its guaranteed to according to literature on your site and in the forums and wiki. But at the same time, I'm out $300 and can't get any help whatsoever. How would you feel if I sold you a box with blinking lights that used 30W of energy a day and didn't do anything else? You would probably
not be ok with that. I'm not ok with this. And I'm running out of time. I only have a few days before I have to return it or get stuck with a $300 night light.Can I please have the Tech Support supervisor's email address or phone number? Have you ever been stiffed $300? Its kind of a rotten feeling.
Why did I buy the Vera? So far the only answer is because I needed to shed $300 and spuraticly light up the corner of my office (blinking LEDs). Please Mi Casa Verde, stand behind your product. Or is Home Automation with Z-Wave just a pipe dream?
Comments
connection issues
I have been installing these devices for a few months now and needless to say there are some things that are frustrating. What I learned is if you are learning an item and it has failed for whatever reason, you cannot keep trying to learn the item without first deleting whatever partial programming the Vera has received. Start completely clean and learn the item, frustration causes you to hit multiple commands and this corrupts the initial command, thus no communication with your devices. Range can be restricted depending on your structure, meaning metal framing in the walls causes some degree of interferance, but I recommend the range extender modules in a few locations depending on your structure size. So far I am happy with this product and see its great potential, good luck to all.