i am afraid not, would be starting from scratch, i’ve never used a Vera hub, or even seen one in the flesh
I am expecting to receive my Garadget device tomorrow. I am doing some preliminary work to make sure I can integrate it into my openHAB2 installation. I looked at the wiki page and installed the Garadget binding using the paperUI. From here I am confused as the wiki talks about putting settings in the openhab.cfg however, I don’t have one and they were obsolete in the openHAB2.
After installing the binding, I don’t see it in the binding configuration in the paperUI so I am not sure where I should put my settings. I know this thread is very old but I couldn’t find a new one that might explain the set up in openHAB2.
Any help/guidance would be greatly appreciated.
You should create a text file in conf/services named garadget.cfg (if there isn’t one there already). Then add the settings as described in the wiki, but leave off the garadget: from the beginning of each line. Make sure lines do not begin with whitespace characters, and any line that is not to take effect should begin with a # character.
I will submit a pull request to allow the binding to be configured from the Paper UI.
Brilliant! Thanks for the reply. I will let you know how easy/hard it is for me to set up.
I checked and didn’t see a garadget.cfg in the /etc/openhab2/services dir. I will create one and get it set up ready for configuration tomorrow.
I will also create the items file and modify my sitemap to show the garage door.
Great! Report back here if you have any issues.
This pull request will correct this in an upcoming OH2 build:
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I’m interested in this also, ianj001. I’ve just unboxed a Garadget and struggling to understand OH2 right now. Please keep us informed, it would be really helpful.
Will do, I have prepared everything, I have an account on their site and have the binding installed in openHAB2 and my garadget.cfg file, populated items and built my sitemap with the status, control and last used. - I just need the UPS guy to do his part and deliver the package 
Once I am done and have it working I can post everything I did in this thread if that would be helpful.
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I have the Garadget up and running with openHAB2 it took about an hour but to be honest, the worst part was getting my phone to configure the device. For some reason my phone (Samsung Galaxy S5) couldn’t see it. I tried restarting the device, restarting the phone, reinstalling the app etc. but nothing. I changed tack and installed the app on my no name android tablet and voila, it found it immediately and I was able to get the device configured. Once configured I followed the instructions and set it up on the garage door opener. I tested that it was working with the stand alone app. It was all good (interestingly the no name tablet was slow to see the correct status of the door but my phone worked like a champ, go figure). Then, having already installed the bindings and prepared everything. I looked in the app and found my device ID. Using VI I replaced all the instances of Watou’s id with mine and checked my openHAB sitemap… nothing. I restarted the computer that my openHAB resides on and boom! I have a functional door opener right in openHAB2. That was about the easiest binding I have used. Now, I want to integrate it with Alexa so I marked the RollerShutter as [“Switchable”] and Alexa found it however, when I tell her to turn it on or off, she says OK but it does nothing. - Question: Is there a switch I can use that just does a straight forward open and close?
Good work IanJ. I’ve only been using OH for about 5 days and still working on the basic concepts. Can you post me the relevant parts of your sitemap please. I’ve had an attempt at creating a sitemap but so far not successfully. I’ll keep trying. The items have populated ok in the paper UI and I’ve added my device id to the .item file. So that looks ok.
Can you search for things using the binding in the paperUI Inbox and find garadget? Is that how it is expected to work? Did OH2 find garadget like it does with Hue and Wemo bulbs?
I’m also using an Echo and as for “Open and Close” command, it looks like Alexa doesn’t respond to these. It has been discussed in the Amazon Developer forums. I can’t get Alexa to respond to any commands using open and close. Would like to find a simple solution too.
Since the Garadget binding is a 1.x binding, it knows nothing about discovery, Things or the inbox. 1.x bindings have to be explicitly configured in your .items text file(s); in the case of the Garadget binding, as described in the Garadget wiki page. I intend to write a generic Particle Cloud API binding for openHAB 2.x when I get the time, and it will do auto-discovery of Things (Particle devices) including Garadget. But for now, you will have to edit your .items file with a text editor or the Designer.
Sure; it would look something like:
Switch doorState "Control" { garadget=">[270041234567343432313031#setState],<[270041234567343432313031#doorStatus_status]" }
The “out” binding will tell the door to close on receiving an OFF command and open on an ON command. The “in” binding will set the Switch item to ON or OFF if the door is open or closed, respectively.
But a Switch isn’t an ideal item type because the received door can be other states, too. That’s why a Rollershutter item is more appropriate usually.
Thanks, I do have the RollerShutter for the my site map but for Alexa, there is no concept of open, close or partial open yet. So, if I want to use her to open and close the garage door it’s just an on and off. “Alexa, turn the garage door on” it’s not natural English but it will work to get her to open the door. I haven’t prettied up my sitemap yet but I threw in the control and state etc with:
//GARADGET STUFF GOES HERE
Frame label=“Garage Door” {
Text item=doorStatus_status label="Door Status"
Switch item=doorState label="Door Control"
Text item=doorStatus_time label="Last Change"
Group item=UI label=“Additional Garage Info”
}
I will take a look at it over the next few days to make it look nicer. I am fighting a camera at the moment that will sit in the garage to visually confirm the open and close state. I will eventually set it up so that when the door opens the camera will record for a short burst so I will have an event in the ZoneMinder that shows who opened the door.
EDIT: I made a couple of changes to my sitemap to make it look better. I used the group for all the stats but on my front page I just wanted the open/closed status, the control and the last change.
Since the “in” binding (<[...]) won’t always update the state of the switch completely (since switches lack intermediate states), you might want to drop the “in” binding part in the garadget="..." string.
Another possibility is to use a Dimmer item, since it is also a Switch item internally, but will update to 50% if the door is neither open or closed.
I will play with the Dimmer option, I don’t know if Alexa will work with that and I can’t test it until I go home this evening. I have updated my items file to include the Switch for now just see if she can actually open and close the door.
Not quite sure what you mean about the “in” binding ?
I am not sure how the state works but Alexa has no concept of it so I was just going to look at openHAB to see where the door was in reality. So far, I have only played with it for a few minutes as I received the Garaget at 5pm and didn’t have long to install it.
The “in” binding is the part of the string after garadget= in your .items file that begins with <. The < is meant to read like it’s pointing “into” openHAB. Meaning, it is how the state of the item will be updated over time. The “out” binding is the part that says what to when the item receives commands (like from the user interface).
I bet Alexa integration knows what to do with Dimmer items, but that is of course optional. I wonder if the Alexa integration could be made to understand Rollershutter items if it doesn’t?
I think any change to the Alexa understanding requires a “skill”. The biggest issue with the skills is that you have to say “Alexa tell ‘skillname’ to open the garage door” as opposed to “Alexa open the garage door”. I wrote a very simple, templated skill and it is way more complex to configure than working with openHAB2. I am relatively new to openHAB and home automation so I am on a steep learning curve already.
I do have switches, lamps, Roku, presence, persistence, my.openhab, cameras, and now garadget set up. I am at a point where I want to think about technology direction, I have been looking into the zwave switches to replace some light switches in the house. I particularly want my outside lights under control but they have tiny “candle” bulbs so it looks like the switches are the best way to control them (not smart bulbs). I am also trying to do all this without spending the farm, so far my biggest expense has been garadget
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In my haste to get everything going and discuss I forgot one really important thing…
@watou Thank you very much for a great binding that just works! - I really appreciate your efforts and your willingness to help others. You have made the Garadget device a really simple thing to integrate into openHAB2 - I know you are planning to do a new binding but to be honest, what you have works well with very little effort.
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