Coming from SmartThings, 1 week into it.

[xeinth]

@Marc - Maybe a little more transparency would help with the frustration about bugs.  I suggest that you use a system similar to what MediaMonkey uses: (http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view_all_bug_page.php).  It logs bugs/improvements and allows customers to view the progress.  Customers can even read programmer notes.  I imagine you can filter any proprietary knowledge with it.

Here's a link to MediaMonkeys changelog, which links to their bug tracker..
http://www.mediamonkey.com/information/changelog/

It is the best system I've seen or used.  It could free up a lot of support time and complement this forum tremendously.

jlind, I replied to ChirsK privately regarding this issue but I guess it is not going to go away. We are in a highly competitive business. Our competitors have gone so far as to copy the style of our videos and they have completely changed the architecture of their platforms to align more with ours. We just can't put out a detailed list of things that are not working properly in our platform. If there is an issue that you are experiecing you can email me and I can look into it. Email not private message so I can forward to other members of the team if I have to.

We've had stability issues with VeraPlus crashing since the release, as well as issues with PLEG, the most critical plugin to enable automation.  Vera seems clueless as to these problems.  Users on this forum have been trying to track down the issues, and customer care does nothing to resolve the problem.  No one even acknowledges the widespread nature of these issues and any plan to address them.

The platform has to be stable and work.  It is not reliable right now, that undermines any other feature or future plans you may have.

Do you think Vera under UI7 is reliable at this point?  Is it as reliable as UI5?

I wouldn't worry any about competitors stealing your ideas or work.  The reason Vera is successful is because of the ecosystem.  As long as you have a strong base product, your user base will make it a great product.  The best part of Vera are the plugins (ALTUI, PLEG, etc) that you have nothing to do with directly.  You competition can make that happen unless you lose your third party developers to them.

x

[Freddan101]

@Marc - I  don't think being transparent with the top user issues you have acknowledged and are working on will hurt you. Explain how. What could hurt would be to share new features to come and that's not what we're talking about here.

You really need to work closer with the most important plugin developers and put some time and priority into that. Without Pleg for example Vera would be pretty bleak. Look at this issue that is very urgent to us.

Vera3 regularly restarts and reboots. PLEG memory issues?
http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=36593

I've been a Vera user for seveal years. As a tech guy I can take a lot of pain regaring things that don't work perfectly and that need tweaking. But I'm getting close to the point where I don't want to put all time into trying to fix issues instead of a actually expanding and enjoying my system.

[intveltr]

I wouldn't worry any about competitors stealing your ideas or work.  The reason Vera is successful is because of the ecosystem.  As long as you have a strong base product, your user base will make it a great product.  The best part of Vera are the plugins (ALTUI, PLEG, etc) that you have nothing to do with directly.  You competition can make that happen unless you lose your third party developers to them.

Very good point. And sharing information on issues can also help Vera Ltd, and reduce the load on their support staff. Case in point: my migration to Vera Plus, which has been a couple of days of pain and suffering. I've had many issues, some of which were resolved by support, and some by me, after hunting for clues on the forum or after tedious trial and error. I have reported all issues and resolutions to support, and they must have gained this info before from others having the same problems. So why is it that this information hasn't found its way into the migration process description yet?  And I'm not sure support even have a decent internal knowledge base; they have been unresponsive on several issues that cannot be uncommon. If Vera Ltd also share known problems with us, we will be spared from spending time on unfixable stuff or filing needless tickets.

[integlikewhoa]

If Vera Ltd also share known problems with us, we will be spared from spending time on unfixable stuff or filing needless tickets.

I think the point was they don't want anyone to know they have "known problems" let alone try and list them all out.

The surprise is half the fun as a user and competition wont take the time to find out themselves. So its all well hidden.

[Freddan101]

You have to spend 10 mins browsing the forum and you know every issue that the users are having. So not that big of a secret.

[intveltr]

I assure you that is not the case

[Freddan101]

How do you mean?

[intveltr]

Not all problems are reported here, or solved here, or can be found here in a reasonable time frame.  A forum really isn;t a substitute for a bug tracker.

[Z-Waver]

@Freddan101 - Bug trackers are useless to users. Vera had a public bug tracker not too long ago and it was discontinued because it was useless and was a resource suck to maintain it. Suppose there was another one. What would it do for you? Is there anything that you could do about it? Do you have access to Vera's source code and if you did could you fix it? Would it make you feel better to know that your favorite bug, a show stopper for you but no one else on the planet, has been deprioritized or marked 'will not fix' and cause you to post threads like this one ranting that your favorite bug has been outstanding for six months and you're outraged? Bug trackers are utterly pointless for users.

If you want to see an illustration of publicly unknown issues that @intveltr is talking about, just have a look at the change log for a recent firmware release. There will be dozens of fixed issues that you never knew existed and that were never discussed on the forum or anywhere else outside of the company. There's absolutely zero need or value to publicly post what are likely thousands of bugs, as is the case in any complicated software, that have little or no impact on most users.

[Freddan101]

@Z-Waver - You might be right. I'm just reaching for some kind of way getting the feeling that something is actually going on at Vera Ltd. I guess if Vera staff, like Marc here, would be a bit more active in the forum that would be a way to give that "we care" feeling. Just like the one I got when I saw Marc's post.

[Marc Shenker]

@Marc - I  don't think being transparent with the top user issues you have acknowledged and are working on will hurt you. Explain how. What could hurt would be to share new features to come and that's not what we're talking about here.

You really need to work closer with the most important plugin developers and put some time and priority into that. Without Pleg for example Vera would be pretty bleak. Look at this issue that is very urgent to us.

Vera3 regularly restarts and reboots. PLEG memory issues?
http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=36593

I've been a Vera user for seveal years. As a tech guy I can take a lot of pain regaring things that don't work perfectly and that need tweaking. But I'm getting close to the point where I don't want to put all time into trying to fix issues instead of a actually expanding and enjoying my system.

We do work with the development community, especially with Richard from PLEG; Richard pretty much has a Bat phone to us. The Vera3 is a fairly old platform with limited memory. In the tread you point at above, Richard rightly suggests using a USB stick to store logs; this frees up memory in the controller. When the controller runs out of memory it usually reboots. If you don't need verbose logging on, turn it off, it takes up memory and processing cycles.

The topic also came up in the other thread about the network connection. One of the uses of the network connection, even when you're not actively downloading is used to automatically backup your configuration and your logs daily. It also syncs the clock. Every time the controller reboots, the clock if offline for a few minutes; over a long period of time without a internet connection it can get out of sync.

[Marc Shenker]

@Z-Waver - You might be right. I'm just reaching for some kind of way getting the feeling that something is actually going on at Vera Ltd. I guess if Vera staff, like Marc here, would be a bit more active in the forum that would be a way to give that "we care" feeling. Just like the one I got when I saw Marc's post.

Freddan, I/we do the best we can to be active in the forum. I could spend days in the forum and not see everything. There is just too much. If there is ever an issue that you come across and want to know if we know about it email me. If you think there is a thread that we should see, email it to me.

[ChrisK]

It has been over a month since the this thread was started.  I thought there might be an update by now, but no.

[integlikewhoa]

It has been over a month since the this thread was started.  I thought there might be an update by now, but no.

Chris your right a month since this thread, but it's been 4 months since any update was released at all. Even Beta updates seemed to have stopped. You would assume there is no problems or issues to fix. They also lead you to believe that it takes time to put out a quality update, which you would assume will be awesome and fix a majority of the issues since its been months. I guess we will have to see.   

[ChrisK]

I waited patiently for the Vera Plus.  I waited for firmware to support the devices I have.  It is unfortunate that Vera hyped this product and never delivered on their claims.  I am not waiting any longer.  Time to pull the plug and moving on.