I’d just like to close this topic by saying that the issue is resolved and I have OH2 on RasPi as my sole automation engine and its working fine. The old Zipato box has now been successfully retired.
The key in cracking this was the rules. Originally I had been using Paper UI as the main interface to OH2, for configuration, for control and for monitoring. Plus a little grep’ing of the events and the openhab logs. However when I got the first rule to work and started to experiment with them, then it became clear that the events were there all the time, just not being reported via the Control screen in PaperUI.
Other tips I can pass on - use a text-based Items file. Once you get a few devices then tracking and managing them can be painful via either PaperUI or Habmin. With a text-based Items file that @chris suggested, it is so much easier to set it up, tweak it, experiment and to back it up. I can make some changes, test them and then revert to previous version much more easily.
If you are using text-based Rules, which I would also recommend, then the means of changing and managing them are so similar that it just makes sense. I just use the Linux Nano editor with the OH2 addin to colour-code the text.
As to the current setup, its really about improving our security and I use OH2 in two main ways. Firstly to automate the lights around the house so it always seems that someone is in. Secondly, the sensors are used to check for motion, temperature etc. If we are away and something seems odd, we can speak to our neighbours to check it out for us.
I have done a software upgrade from OH2/Rasbian to the current OH2/OpenHABian, for the extra tools and features.
The simple setup has been grown to include multiple bindings including Astro, Sonos and Philips Hue. I’ve added OH Cloud for remote access and that works well and HABPanel to give me a simple tablet-based interface which I can also use on my phone if needed. I’ve added persistence so I can graph data, which shows up well on HABPanel. I do have plans to add a few more things, a couple more bindings and one or two more specific devices where necessary but with a couple of hundred lines in the Items file and about a thousand in the rules file, the basic functionality is more or less where I wanted it.
Incidentally, regarding the Aeotec Multisensor 6, its a great device but it absolutely eats batteries. It really does need to have a 5V supply to make it into a usable and useful device. Now I have mine on external power it works well and consistently.
Many thanks @chris, @toneus and all the others that have pointed me in the right direction. I’m now a happy and more confident OH2 user.
