Clone Dongle

HOWTO Clone your Z-Wave dongle (Vera2 and Vera3 have the Z-Wave chip built in, a dongle is optional)

Introduction

The Z-Wave chip inside the black dongle maintains the master list of all the other Z-Wave devices that you have included into your Z-Wave network. Vera also maintains its own database with a list of devices, and Vera's database has a lot more detail, such as the name of the device, the room that it's in and so on. Vera continually syncs its database with the master list of devices in the Z-Wave dongle. This is why you can remove the dongle, carry it around to pair and unpair devices, and when you reconnect the dongle to Vera, Vera will show any new or removed devices. If you insert a new dongle in Vera, then all your devices will disappear since the new dongle doesn't have any devices paired to it and so Vera deletes the ones in its database.

Starting with Luup version 1.0.880 and higher, Vera is able to backup not only Vera's database, but also the data stored in the dongle.  Vera also has the ability to restore, or clone, this backup into another dongle.

For example, if you receive a replacement dongle, you can restore a backup of your old dongle's data to the new dongle so you don't have to rebuild your network.

Instructions

To do this follow these steps:

1. Be sure that you have not made any changes to Vera within the past 2 hours.
   Vera will backup the dongle's configuration whenever the list of devices in the dongle changes. The backup process is slow, so Vera does it in small increments when there is no activity on the Z-Wave network. In Vera's setup page, go to Devices, Z-Wave, More Z-Wave options, and look at the value for Last Dongle Backup. This will show the date & time that Vera last completed a successful backup of the dongle. Be sure that this is not empty of "N/A". If it is, leave Vera alone for a couple hours, refresh the Vera setup page, and check again.
2. Once you've confirmed that Vera has a backup of your dongle, go to Advanced, Backup and choose Create backup.
   Your browser will prompt you to save a file. Save it to your computer somewhere, such as on the Desktop. Be sure to wait until your browser has finished downloading.  That backup file contains both Vera's database as well as the dongle's.
3. Insert your new dongle.
   Wait a minute to be sure that it's recognized. You should see all your Z-Wave devices have disappeared.
4. Go to Advanced, Backup and in the restore section, click 'choose file' and locate the backup file.
   Check the box 'Restore Dongle Firmware'. Then click Restore.
5. Leave Vera alone for 15 minutes.
   Vera will restore its database, which has all the detailed information on the device, and will also restore the dongle's data from the backup file, which takes several minutes.
6. Confirm your new dongle is working and that you have a complete list of devices.
   

• Note In case you forgot to backup your existing settings and you have the findvera.com service activated from Findvera.com tab, your Vera will backup your data once per day. So, go to https://findvera.com and click Settings and you will see there the backups. Select the last one and restore it to your Vera unit. Read here about the restore process: Backup / Restore.