Does PiFace support require two separate Raspberry PIs?

Add-ons Bindings
1

Hi,

I’m exploring the PiFace support in openHab and openHabianPi, and the reference in https://docs.openhab.org/addons/bindings/piface1/readme.html to the config “Host IP address of the Piface device” has got me wondering if I have the wrong end of the stick, and need two separate Raspberry Pis to use the PiFace binding?

I would like to install the openHabianPi image on a Pi, and fire up that as the openHab instance that I can link to the cloud OpenHabOrd service, so that I can control is via my Amazon Alexa.

I have a PiFace that I want to use to drive a relay to ‘click’ a separate Garage Opener module that I have.

The inference in the openHab bindings however is that an openHabianPi can access raw local GPIO pins as well as be the OpenHab server, but that the use of PiFace requires another separate Raspberry Pi that has the PiFace on it, and is also running a separate Raspbian distro (and so has a separate IP address)?

Have I misunderstood? It is not possible to have an openHabianPi instance that accesses its own local PiFace board?

Many thanks!

2

Also, seeing as openHabian is based on Raspbian Lite, is it possible to install the PiFace network listener on the same Raspberry Pi that has the openHabianPi installation, and control the openHabianPi’s local PiFace outputs that way? Presumably the listener and PiFace binding could both be set to localhost?

3

Yes that should be possible

4

One more question - it looks like the PiFace binding only support input and output pins.

Does it not support operating the two PiFace relays?