My need was initially for security. I bought locks first, then bought the Vera to control them. If you ask my wife, everything else that I've added has been a want. She claims she doesn't want anything else, so my biggest need now is to ensure that anything new passes the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor).
The Vera seems to have enabled quite a bit of home automation and integration with a lot of low cost high value add-ons. I like having the flexibility of buying disparate products (Lutron Casete, Ecobee, Baldwin locks, Harmony remote, Tivo, Apple HomeKit, etc.) and integrating them all into the Vera as a master controller.
Future plans (needs) beyond what I have so far include:
- Climate control (fans, curtain and skylight controls, vents/zone controls)
- Security (cameras, motion sensors)
- pool controls
I'm very interested in trying out Alsteon on my Vera Plus. The native Insteon was a bust. I've had the fanlinc installed for about 2 months now, and I would love to see if I can control it from the Vera Plus. If you can help me get it running, then I'll write a how-to that details the steps.