My goal is to have some sort of documentation for my openHAB based home automation.
Some kind of at least an overview on how the home automation is built.
So, I’m sure everyone has like a bunch of different tech crammed together and uses openHAB as a piece of orchestration in between them - plus adding some “logic” via rules and stuff. At least that’s what openHAB stands for, right?
So, my thing is:
I myself sometimes lose track on how (and why!!) I did connect something
I’d like to give others at least a hint on what I did (if I’m suddenly not around to do it myself)
So, in enterprise tech, there’s some stuff like “LeanIX”, which can both keep track of your used servers, interfaces and processes and put that together in a way others (and future me) can see what was done.
I’m not sure, if there’s some kind of open source solution around (I doubt it?), but perhaps someone already had a go on it and some tips and tricks for like templates for at least gliffy oder even some kind of software for this?
What I have in mind is some kind of technical drawing where I can input my devices like KNX, Zigbee, sensors/other devices with dedicated APIs, Fritzbox, calendar, … to see, how they’re connected to openHAB.
I’m not talking about a wiki-like documentation, where I can put in stuff like text and pictures. finally I’ll “insert” the drawing for data flows or interfaces into that documentation, but to have my openHAB “Things” visualised, so to speak?
For IP based stuff you can create some automated and semi-automated drawings out of the network using lots of tools. I’ve used Zabbix for this in the past. But that won’t help for non-IP based stuff, cloud APIs, and the like. But that will only give you part of the picture. Though with Zabbix it is theoretically possible to create a template or plug-in that monitors the OH Things which could be included in the Zabbix diagrams. I’m sure other tools might have something similar. Note the Zabbix diagrams will be “live” in that they will not only show how everything is connected, but will also show their current status.
It’s a lot of work though. I don’t really use Zabbix diagrams anymore and mainly use it to send me an email when something has gone awry.
I used to keep up with a drawing of my setup but after a while it started to feel like naval gazing. “Gee, look at this great thing I made! Let me worship it by drawing it!” No one I know is ever going to look at it and no one is ever going to touch it if I am ever unable to. Instructions for my wife are very simple: unplug the cable with the red label.
ok, similar here, as my wife is not into IT or even some kind of APIs. And most (at least the important ones!) devices also function “on their own” and openHAB only ever connects for some on-top logic…
I so ever think on future me and how I sometimes stumble across either some posts of mine here or my (mostly sparcely updated) documentation and think “What the hell? Did I do that?”… or my son, who now starts his work as a electrician and so I’ll have to show him stuff…
who knows? Perhaps there’s some easy to use stuff for documentation somewhere used from somebody here?
I use my smarthome deployment as some kind of documentation. Documentation as code. All custom configurations like ip ranges/addresses, outgoing mailserver, account data, openhab configurations and a lot more, are adaptable. That means the deployment itself is generic and can be cloned and customized.
e.g. It includes several tools like a networkscanner which combines different datasources like (fritzbox api, snmp/librenms, openwrt api, arpsan, dhcp traffic, nmap …) to generate a live network visualization
