UI4 changes
There were some major changes to the way UI4 handles users and remote access. For new users this won't be an issue, but for current UI2 or UI3 users who are used to things working one way, this document explains what changed and why.
With UI2 and UI3, you created a username and password for remote access (findvera.com), and could only have 1 username to remotely access vera and each username could only access 1 vera. You also created users locally on Vera which were used to store phone numbers and email for event notifications, as well as for local login.
This created a lot of confusion and support complaints. Customers would create a local user on Vera (ie John) and then expect to login through findvera.com with that username. Or customers would create 4 different local users, and expect all 4 to be able to access through findvera.com. And, customers would have multiple Vera's (main home, vacation home, etc.) and expect to access them all with 1 account.
To simplify things, there is now just 1 type of user account. You go to cp.mios.com and register for a free account, and you put your contact information (email, phone number, etc.) in there online. Then, when a you are logged in to cp.mios.com and a new Vera is detected on your home's LAN which hasn't already been assigned to a myMiOS account, you have an option on your myMiOS control panel to add it. At this point you become the administrator. Other family members can also create their own myMiOS accounts with their own contact information. As the administrator you can add them to Vera as either fellow administrators so they have the same full control as you do, or as guests so they can control Vera but not configure, or as 'notification only' meaning they can receive alerts but can't login to Vera to control it.
Vera automatically syncs the users you create on cp.mios.com with those stored locally on Vera. So as you create notification you can check off which users should get the alerts.
The users<->vera relationship is now many to many instead of one to one. This means you can have a myMiOS username and add both your main home and vacation home to it and control both from one login, and you can add the pool guy as a guest user in the vacation home, and add your neighbor as a guest user in the main home.
While we were redoing the server structure, we also made it redundant. Now, there are 2 sets of servers for every function, split into 2 data centers. So, if the main server that processes notifications goes down, Vera will send the notifications to a backup server which will process them. And, if the main server handling your remote access to Vera goes down, you will automatically be switched to the backup server. Our goal is to get the uptime as close to 100% as possible.
