Would it be possible to disable the local access check? My phones are all kept in a guest network, so it can only access the Vera through the internet. Since my Vera also requires authentication to operate on local networks, this isn't much of a problem, but Grasshopper first tries to access through the local net wasting a lot of time before concluding that it can't access the Vera directly. Skipping the local check by putting it on 4G increases speed dramatically, so my guess it is the failed lookup for the local device that is the issue here.
Jaap