Thanks for sharing your experience with the Vorwerk Robots. I own a VR200 and used it for some time with OH 2.x/3.x. The actual provided solution by @Pavion with serial and secret (without configuring a bridge) worked for me in Openhab 3.x. Since i upgraded to OH 4.0.1 if have a problem that OH is reporting an error.
Error in MainUI / Thing:
Status:
UNINITIALIZED HANDLER_CONFIGURATION_PENDING
{bridge=Configuring a bridge is mandatory.}
I’m unable to test this binding anymore, maybe just because my vacuum is offline for too long.
Still, if it worked for you as far, there is a good chance.
It looks like OH4 is now enforcing the usage of a bridge. You may try to create a bridge with dummy credentials but it’ll probably fail because of the bridge connection exception. In this case you can check my newest pre-release with the bridge being removed altogether.
thanks for your fast response and work you’re investing into the community. Very much appreciated. I tried to:
1.) “You may try to create a bridge with dummy credentials but it’ll probably fail because of the bridge connection exception.” (Version Release 4.0.0-SNAPSHOT · Pavion/openhab-addons · GitHub)
=> Result: thing status: not yet ready. Did not worked for me.
@Pavion i am also very much interested in such an update for OH 5. Would it be possible for you to provide? You have at least 2 testers . Thanks for an answer in advance.
@arohleder: sorry I’ve missed your message somehow
@arohleder, @dk8pn : as already said, I don’t have a Kobold anymore but I could try to fix any errors you provide. I’m not aware of any major breaks in 5.0, so please check the #23 above first, the bridgeless 4.0 version from GitHub might just work for you.
Thanks for your quick answer. I didn’t upgrade yet from OH 4.3.8 to OH 5.0.3 because of your binding. Also use the snapshot now as @arohleder . The major difference between OH 4.3.8 and OH 5.x is that OH 5.x requires Java 21 instead of Java 17.
Will give the bridgeless version a try tomorrow and come back to you.
Edit 1:
Just recognized, that both .jar files have the same filename? Assume that the “bridgeless” version doesn’t longer need serial and secret, right? My current version still has both. Comming from OH 3.4.5 i only exchanged the .jar without recreation of the thing and it worked out as before.
Edit 2:
Looking to the date of the .jar using the Karaf console, i already have the “bridgeless” version. But if i create a new thing, it still asks me for serial and secret? Could you explain that a bit?
Well, it was two years ago…
It’s actually a fork of a Neato binding (same API) with a vendor selection.
As far as I remember, Neato had some features tied to the Bridge, Vorwerk didn’t. For the sake of compatibility, I’ve kept the bridge part for some time and dropped it in the last release as it caused some issues.
In any case you sure need your serial/secret to authenticate with Hive, but in the “classic” release you’d enter credentials for the Bridge and in the Bridgeless release you have no Bridge and use credentials for the Vacuum Thing instead.
Some ideas to begin with:
Please check the binding version (4.0.0.202308301607).
Do you see any errors in your logs (perhaps with enabled debug)?
What is the expected/observed behavior?
P.S. If there are any major breaking issues due to an OH update (twice that far with this fork ), it might be necessary to refork Neato and to reapply Vendor skeleton. If you’re into coding, you’re welcome to contribute
Hi Pav, thanks for this clarification. Will check logs and test OH 5 tomorrow. Many thanks, that you are willing to help. Unfortunately i am not a coder… .
important question as I still don’t know what your issue ist:
is the binding working right now somehow with any setup or any older OH release?
According to ChatGPT, Vorwerk will or already have disabled all cloud services by Q4/25, so it looks very bad for the future. On my test setup I’m getting a COMMUNICATION_ERROR, the cloud nucleo.ksecosys.com seems to be down.
Have the binding 4.0.0.202308301607 and it works perfectly on OH 4.3.8. Before i had OH 3.4.6 for a couple of years. In parallel i also have the Kobold-App on my iPhone and this works as well up to now.
The only questionmark is about OH 5.x. Will test this tomorrow and let you know the result.
have upgraded to OH 5.0.3 by this morning and your “bridgeless” binding 4.0.0.202308301607 worked out immediately. That is amazing. You have programmed a binding 2 years in advance of OH 5.x. This is really unique. Chapeau!
At the moment it looks like there is no additional coding required . Will test details and let you know if everything is fine.
BR Willi
What is anyway strange: a pure Neato binding for OH 5.x is available. But Vorwerk acquired Neato years ago and closed Neato in 2023. But there seem to be many Neatos running through OH (otherwise this binding would not exist) but probably only a few Kobolds?
Actually I’m following OH since 2.0, there have been some breaking changes between majors but it looks like OH5 is rather benign in that respect.
I’m actually unsure whether Neato Binding is used much. As it’s included in official openhab-addons, it’s probably being upgraded and recompiled automatically.
On the other hand, neither do I have an idea, how many people are using my fork - but at least one
I can confirm this. My problem was that i have the orginal binding an the snapshot installed. after uninstall the orginal neato binding it works fine again. Thank you for good Work!!!
My VR200 has been “Offline” for roughly 2 days from 07th of January until today. No detailed information from Vorwerk, but the customer service told me, that they are not knowing much but engineering would play arround to improve something. Somehow typical for Vorwerk.
Since 09th 12am my robot is back “Online” and in openHAB as well .
. Thanks for an answer in advance.
), it might be necessary to refork Neato and to reapply Vendor skeleton. If you’re into coding, you’re welcome to contribute 
.
!