I’m trying out OH3, having run OH2 for some time now.
Starting from scratch on RPi4 with OpenHABian, no importing of any existing things, configuring everything from the new UI. Added a couple of Hue bulbs for starters, all good.
I’ve got Mosquitto running on a different host where loads of different topics are being updated from assorted devices around my network and displayed / acted upon by my existing OH2 setup. No security in place.
I’ve added the remote broker as a bridge, added a generic MQTT thing using that bridge and I’m trying to add a channel to subscribe to a topic I know is being updated every 10 seconds. I can confirm the topic is receiving new values via MQTT Explorer and also the OH2 installation, but nothing seems to be arriving in OH3. I have the MQTT State Topic configured with the same syntax I’ve used in OH2.
Does anyone have a simple set of steps for how to configure a Thing > Channel for an existing MQTT topic from a remote broker please? I’m sure I’ve missed something simple but I’m not sure what it is!
cheers
Edit:
I can see a value now, but it’s static; it doesn’t refresh live nor change if I refresh the homepage.
Edit again:
Working now. Looking at the logging, I noticed OpenHAB was trying to reconnect to an MQTT broker at an invalid IP address (Raspbian keeps getting a second IP address on the same interface which I haven’t fixed yet). Rebooted the server, all good.
Actually I’d be interested in knowing how others group their MQTT things. I have a mix of MQTT topics on my broker; Roomba messages via Dorito, RPis doing various tasks now chuck out a status via MQTT just for monitoring, Plex status messages and assorted Wemos D1s running environmental monitors.
I ended up creating a single MQTT generic thing and adding all the channels there, just because I started with a small number which grew.
With this OH3 instance starting from scratch I might create generic things in line with the Model; so perhaps a thing per floor or room. Or perhaps in line with type, so all environmental topics in one thing, etc.
I think the idea is that a Thing is a single physical device. So your Roomba is one Thing, Plex is another Thing, a single rPi is another Thing, and a single D1 is another Thing.
The Thing is tied to the physical device only, and the Channels are then - exclusively - properties of that device - a temperature sensor, a power switch etc.
Things are not locations - that’s what Locations are, which are just Group Items.
Creating a Generic MQTT Thing for each single physical device is better aligned with adding Things that are not using MQTT so I agree, that does seem a better way.
When there are multiple ways to configure OH, it’s often best to see what the community is doing - appreciate your time!
