Forum section and documentation suggestion

Would it be possible to get a hardware reviews channel in the community? It would be greatly appreciated to know what devices have been tried and either succeeded or failed as well as if it takes a firmware update etc to make it useful. sub sections for light bulbs/furnaces/switches/novelty/… would help out those of us who are new to the scene and looking to know what can be readily added to openhab or may need work to make it happen.

Can we get a better breakout in the documentation of what devices a thing controls? like little badges for light’s/blinds/hvac/weather/… also if for example there is a power switch device that with default firmware either forces use of cloud or is not happily compatible but after a community firmware works well with out cloud or other tricks… make a smooth edge badge mean it works with updates and a star edge badge means it works happily no strings attached. also a badge for cloud only devices. being able to find non cloud hardware is quite important for me not just for security reasons but also due to loss of internet during the winter storms can leave cloud only devices broken for weeks at a time. dropping a link to the reviews and using badges on devices known to work well in both places would be a great help to new users. it would also be nice to know if those are us/uk/ger/… only devices.

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Welcome to openHAB.
As you just joined yesterday, please get yourself familiar with the software and the forum first.

The forum is on openHAB, not on smart home technology in general.
openHAB can connect to anything. It is not a feasible approach to try to categorize, review or even document all smart tech on the market and its “openHAB compatibility level” - neither on the forum nor in the docs. That’s way too much to cover, let alone the huge efforts it would take to keep that up to date. Hardware can be discussed insofar it is about connecting it to your openHAB instance.
We have a Hardware category for that.
We have a Tutorials & Examples section where you can leave reviews.
And we have a search function.

But what you are looking for is not feasible, and it is outside of this forum’s scope.
Sorry for setting expectations straight in the first place, but this has been asked and discussed a number of times and repeating that discussion doesn’t get us anywhere.

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there is a hardware section but I’ve found a good way to find out what works is to start a thread and ask other folks what they are using. Here is an example of a thread I started back in Jan 2019 asking about motion sensors


The home automation market is changing fast and it might be difficult to keep things up to date using a system as you suggest

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Ah I skipped over the Tutorials & examples since it didn’t intuitively suggest reviews. When i glanced over the posts in there and the headings it didn’t look like it would have any good info since there was no reviews category, and being new i don’t know exactly what brand/chip set to look for.

Thanks for the suggestion I will look a those as well.

This is once again the once a quarter request for something like a database of devices that works with openHAB. It’s never happened. It’s never going to happen. The market is too vast and changing to ever build such a thing. Even withing very constrained categories, like IP cameras, services like ZoneMinder have tried and failed to build and keep up a comprehensive list of all compatible cameras/. openHAB supports more than 350 technologies and APIs. Each technology can support hundreds to thousands of different devices. And the list of devices is constantly growing.

There already is a Hardware category and anyone who is willing to can post a review of any hardware there. If there are enough posts we will certainly consider breaking it up into multiple categories. And if anyone wants to volunteer to do the work to start building a database like that they are welcome to get started and try to do it. I’m sure we’d be happy to integrate it with openHAB’s docs in some way.

Much of the information you are after is already in the binding docs such as devices that are known to work, known not to work (note that neither can ever be comprehensive lists), firmware updates that are required, etc. But you have to come at this from the other direction. You don’t ask “what light bulbs work best?” You have to ask "which technologies works best and then choose a lightbulb that uses that technology (if available). Of go out on your own and choose a light bulb or two, figure out what technology it uses, and come and search to see openHAB supports that technology/API.

Ultimately though, to be successful in home automation, you will have to do some research. It is not now nor do I ever see it being as simple as choosing a bunch of devices from a list. You will have to learn a bit about the different technologies, how they work, and how they are integrated. Given that information then you can come to openHAB and see how/whether those will integrate with openHAB.

It would be easier to get the sales people that sell the stuff to advertise it as “openHAB compatable”

Basicly if you are willing to use a soldering iron on a brand new device then everything can be shoe horned in to get working.

I look to see if there is a Binding that is being activly maintained for a device to see how easy it is to intergrate into openHAB.

I must say that I have recived better support from this forum than ANY other service on the internet.