An update on my progress -
Got the unit installed, physically next to the old unit, so I can compare the two (there's a third motion detector nearby that I use as a base line for motion)
Surprisingly, it installed into Vera while in it's ultimate position, not within 10 feet of the VeraPlus unit as I would normally do. I did this as an experiment, just to see. So, despite being 2 zwave units (links) away in the mesh, Vera recognized and installed it as a generic Zwave unit. I went through the (elsewhere in this discussion chain) described changes in the file, xml, json files, corrected the type numbers (4&3) and the VariablesSet values.
It changed to a motion detector and responded correctly. BUT, I had no "child" units (temp, humid, lux). There was a warning label on the device stating that it could not determine the manufacturer. (the manufacture variable was blank)
I let it sit overnight and in the morning the child units appeared. Don't know when. Also, the manufacturer variable was now filled.
It reported motion, temp, etc. The old unit also reported motion, temp, etc. Tracking both units over the day, the old unit stopped reporting for about 5 hours, and then began reporting again. The new unit continued reporting each time I checked.
This morning, both units are reporting. When I say reporting, I mean that their temp, etc. values have changed from the previous reporting. I don't know about the accuracy of those reports, just that they had changed in the interval. The temps are different from one another even though they are next to one another. Sometimes by as much as 6 degrees, sometimes within a degree.
They do seem to trigger motion detection more frequently than the base line unit, not sure why that is, but I can work with that, maybe adjust the sensitivity.
And, BTW, both are displaying a warning notice "Waiting for wakeup to configure device..."
Does anyone know how I could log the temperatures to a file over time, without having to access the system and write down the numbers? I'd be able to monitor the units performance over time with a much more granular data set.
I am hopeful....