EnOcean bindings : Opencean or Aleoncean?

Hello everyone,

I couldn’t find this discussion solved anywhere, so I thought to post this here.

A couple of weeks ago I started playing with OpenHAB 2. I managed to start up my Z-Wave battery powered devices (though I had some trouble with discovering them), I implemented my first site map and set up a few basic rules to update it. Then I decided to test my EnOcean devices: CO2 sensor (EEP - A5:09:08); WaterSensor eco (EEP - F6:05:01); AlphaEOS sense (EEP - A5:04:01) ; WIndowGrip (EEP - F6:10:00). I downloaded Ocean binding using Paper UI and started testing, I saw the ESP3 messages being received in the log, but I couldn’t get my things set up. So after a bit of googling I found out that my devices are not supported by the binding I chose. So with a bit of Java knowledge and determination I implemented the profiles for my devices and after quick junit tests I moved on to the last phase - implementing the EEPs in opencean - the library on which Ocean binding is built, but alas "This Library [opencean] is discontinued! Please have a look at the Aleoncean library… ", it said on the opencean’s wiki.

So I was left with a dilemma: follow through with my plan and implement my changes or try to port my work to Aleoncean?

This wouldn’t be a problem if I decided to keep my work to myself, but I want to share what I have done with the community so nobody had to do this work again and at the same time I want to find out which of the two bindings is currently preferred by the OpenHAB community, because currently in OH2 when you look for bindings for EnOcean devices in Paper UI or HABmin2 you only find this EnOcean binding, which again is built on a discontinued library. So I can see that there is a potential for quite a bit of confusion (like @GeertVc post about which binding to choose) among the users. What are your thoughts about this issue?

@maggu2810 Do you have any recommendation here - shall we replace the current Enocean binding by Aleoncean? It seems that this is still maintained and PRs are welcomed and processed there, so this might be a good move.

The open source openHAB 1 based aleoncean binding and the used library is currently not maintained anymore.
See my comment here:
https://github.com/aleon-GmbH/aleoncean-openhab-binding/issues/19#issuecomment-228688627

That’s a pity. I would love to see someone from the community to pick up EnOcean again and possibly port it to openHAB 2 directly - I would assume that there are quite some users (and therefore also developers!) interested in this binding or am I wrong?

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These are bad news.
Anyhow, if we consider to start porting or reimplementing the EnOcean Binding for OH2, can you recommend a library we should use?
@Kai What is the recommended process to start creating an OH2 EnOcean Binding? @Saukijanas is a student at our institute and might contribute to such an implementation.

When searching for EnOcean and Java, I ended up at the developer guide of prosyst. I fear that bundle is nor available as open source. Do you know if the have implemented an EnOcean library on their own or use some open source library?

Hi Christoph,

Not easily, it probably makes sense to spend some time first to explore the options.
I would think that the aleoncean lib could be a good basis and if it isn’t maintained anymore, we could fork and revive it.

Then again, there is the EnOcean OSGi base driver reference implementation at Eclipse SmartHome, it would only be consequential to build a binding around that (and best directly at ESH, not at OH2). Since the EEPs are considered IP of the EnOcean Alliance, this part would have to be done as an extension to the binding though, which we could host at OH2 (with a potential disclaimer on the license). I currently cannot say how much effort such an approach will be.

See here.

Regarding ProSyst: Yes, afaik this is closed source code and not using any open source library.

Hi @Kai ,
yes there are some users for EnoCean - i use the window-handles from hoppe to control window open/close. I do it with the Aleoncean binding because the orig. enocean binding will not run under OH 1.8.x

Really? Is there an issue about that? Why is it still included in every 1.8.x release as well as in the 1.9 snapshot?

The EnOcean binding is not develop since more than two years: https://github.com/thomasletsch/opencean and the Aleoncean binding supported hoppe and the last update is form Feb.2016. See https://community.openhab.org/t/enocean-what-binding-to-use/3074 too.

This does not really answer my question of why you claim it “will not run”, does it?

Ok Kai - you are right. May be it will run under 1.8 - but it supports only 3 old devices. i test it with the hoppe secure window-handle and this don’t so i switch to aleon and here it will work. I thing it is a good idea to include both bindings in the releases of OH.

Now I’ve to solve the same problem.
Right now, openhab 1.8.3 is running with the enocean-binding 1.8.3.
It’s working fine, but it’s impossible to use all enocean actors and the hoppe handles, so the most important features are missing.
Is there any experience which versions of Aleoncean are working with my version of openhab?

Hey guys, I’m new to the forum. I’ve been using openhab together with the Comfoair binding for a while now and would also like to use an implementation of the EnOcean binding. I have some basic programming knowledge and might find some time to contribute on a binding, have no good idea where to start however. I could for example help by expanding an existing solution to some other kinds of switch etc. (I’ve currently got a contact switch, a temperature sensor and a 4-key switch to play with). Let me know if I can be of any help…

Seems like there is a decent amount of interest in EnOcean and even a few people willing to step up and contribute. I’d put myself in that later category as well. Unfortunately I don’t have the time to commit to leading an effort to create an OH2 EnOcean binding, if someone is willing to take the lead I’ll gladly contribute.

@Kai are you aware of anyone with a desire to lead such an effort? Basic design\architecture, task\issue creation that would enable people in the community to pick up some features as time permits?

Dave

Hi, I’m interested too in enocean. Sadly, there is a HUGE mess on github / maven: aleoncean has … disappeared. and so has the binding.

There are some people that did fork the aleoncean binding, I cloned it and compilation fails because it doesn’t find aleoncean1.9.jar on maven (where it is not … anymore ?)

So I cloned some aleoncean lib (latest I could find) git repo, and compiled it (changed the version to 1.9 instead of 0.0.1-snapshot …) … but still the compilation of the binding fails miserably on classes not found (wich are not present so I assume that I cloned a very old version, the only one available right now).

Someone has cleaned the web or what ? not cool at all …

If someone can re-upload the right sources on github please ?

Unfortunately not, I would love to see someone stepping up for this.
Something to take as a starting point might be the work in https://github.com/eclipse/smarthome/pull/526 (which is not further pursued by the original contributor).

@hubertus_hettenkofe1 do you successfully use your EnOcean window handle with OH2? Which binding do you use these days? Do you mind to share your items configuration? I am using the Hoppe SecuSignalFHFS-vw window handle (eep=F6-10-00) and I could need some help in order to set things up. - Thanks!

No - it is not running under OH2 yet. In the moment there is no support for the 1.x binding under OH2. I hope this will change soon ;-). Under OH 1.8 i use the aleoncean binding and it works fine.

Not the answer I was looking for :wink:
Does that mean that EnOcean in general is not working under OH2, yet, or are you specifically referring to the window handles?
I am also trying to get an Eltako FT55-rw switch (eep=F6:02:01) working using the EnOcean 1.9 binding. However, I am struggling with this one as well as you can read here: EnOcean Pi 868 GPIO module gateway Setup with OH2
I simply don’t receive any kind of signal from the switch and I don’t understand what the problem is.

What’s the current state of the development with regards to EnOcean in conjunction with OH2? I would love to make the switch from FHEM to OH2, however, EnOcean is critical for my setup!