Considering switching to OpenHab and I would like some insight regarding what I am planning to do with it

[kalto (Pierre Francoeur)]

Hi!

I am currently running some home automation using SmartThings but I am getting increasingly unhappy by their platform unreliability (schedule not running on time, routine not getting saved as they should, etc…). So I am considering switching platform and OpenHab looks really interesting because it looks totally open and vendor agnostic. I am an IT system admin/integrator with a lot of experience in IT automation (lots of bash/perl scripting) so I believe I’ll feel at home with an OpenHab running on a linux machine. I also believe I’ll have a LOT more control on what I can do (or fail to do) than with a platform totally in the cloud.

I have some question though:

• Most of my device (temperature sensor, door sensor, leak sensor) are from SmartThings. I know they use Z-Wave. Anyone using those device with a Z-Wave stick and OpenHab? Couldn’t find anything in the forum or Google regarding the use of those sensor with anything else then a SmartThings hub. I would really prefer to just ditch the hub and keep the sensor…
• I plan on using an Aoetec ZStick Gen5 plugged in a Raspberry Pi 2. It looks supported in the binding documentation. Any recommendation?
• I would prefer not to run the OpenHab installation directly on the Raspberry Pi as I have a full vSphere cluster with HA (and much, much more power than the RPi). Since the Z-Wave is actually running on a serial interface, I thought I could simply use something like ser2net to proxy the serial interface across the network to a VM running OpenHab. Sounds feasible?
• I got a couple of GE connected bulb that use ZigBee. I don’t really mind changing them for something else (Philips Hue sounds like a good idea) but it would be nice to keep them if possible. I couldn’t find much about a ZigBee binding. Any idea on how this could be achieved through some kind of bridge?

Any suggestion would be appreciated!

Thank you!

[watou (John Cocula)]

@kalto

Most of my device (temperature sensor, door sensor, leak sensor) are from SmartThings. I know they use Z-Wave. Anyone using those device with a Z-Wave stick and OpenHab? Couldn’t find anything in the forum or Google regarding the use of those sensor with anything else then a SmartThings hub. I would really prefer to just ditch the hub and keep the sensor…

The database of currently supported Z-Wave devices is here, but for any you have that aren’t currently supported, if you can find the manuals for them or other references (like in the Pepper database), they can most likely be added. Devices like door locks that use the security classes aren’t yet supported in openHAB, but there is work underway to add this support.

@kalto

I plan on using an Aoetec ZStick Gen5 plugged in a Raspberry Pi 2. It looks supported in the binding documentation. Any recommendation?

I have both the S2 and Gen 5 sticks on RPi2’s and they work great.

[kalto (Pierre Francoeur)]

I can’t find any info on the link you provided regarding SmartThings device. I guess they are actually rebranding some other manufacturer and not developing their own. Any way, I can see the sensor definition in the SmartThings API so I’ll just assume I can get them to work somehow.

Thank you for the info!

[rlkoshak (Rich Koshak)]

@kalto

I would prefer not to run the OpenHab installation directly on the Raspberry Pi as I have a full vSphere cluster with HA (and much, much more power than the RPi). Since the Z-Wave is actually running on a serial interface, I thought I could simply use something like ser2net to proxy the serial interface across the network to a VM running OpenHab. Sounds feasible?

I believe someone posted recently about doing this successfully. I can’t find the posting right now though. I did find this mention of it though.

[picarsqu3 (c)]

@kalto

I can’t find any info on the link you provided regarding SmartThings device. I guess they are actually rebranding some other manufacturer and not developing their own. Any way, I can see the sensor definition in the SmartThings API so I’ll just assume I can get them to work somehow.

Hey Pierre,

I actually have a couple of SmartThings sensors that I’d like to connect to my OH install as well. Have you had any luck finding references to doing this?

[picarsqu3 (c)]

@watou

The database of currently supported Z-Wave devices is here, but for any you have that aren’t currently supported, if you can find the manuals for them or other references (like in the Pepper database), they can most likely be added. Devices like door locks that use the security classes aren’t yet supported in openHAB, but there is work underway to add this support.

Considering that Samsung seems to own SmartThings now, the Pepper DB shows some devices by Samsung. Would that mean that said devices are supported in OH already? I would love to try and add these to OH and see if they work…

[watou (John Cocula)]

If you can add them to the database and test that they work, @chris (and all future users of your contributions) would appreciate it!

[picarsqu3 (c)]

Sounds like a plan. I have no idea how to do this (still very new here), is there a guide/wiki article perchance?

Thanks as always

[watou (John Cocula)]

@picarsqu3

is there a guide/wiki article perchance?

Chris documented how to add to the database and the database format. People with github.com accounts can submit pull requests. Here is an example that someone just submitted an hour ago!

[theIDofIoT (the Smartest Idiot)]

@kalto

I can’t find any info on the link you provided regarding SmartThings device. I guess they are actually rebranding some other manufacturer and not developing their own. Any way, I can see the sensor definition in the SmartThings API so I’ll just assume I can get them to work somehow.

Thank you for the info!

As for manufacturers, I know that what I think is referred to as the ‘first gen’ SmartThings devices were made by Centralite, and also branded as PEQ (i.e. the deals at BestBuy last fall, etc). That’s at least a couple different terms to search on I guess.