# Ideas and Discussion: What Features Do You Want in openHAB 5.0? **URL:** \ **Category:** Features\ **Created:** [November 30, 2024, 1:44pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/ideas-and-discussion-what-features-do-you-want-in-openhab-5-0/160573 "2024-11-30T13:44:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Lolodomo](https://community.openhab.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/ac91a4/32.png) [@Lolodomo](https://community.openhab.org/u/Lolodomo)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2024, 7:52am UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/ideas-and-discussion-what-features-do-you-want-in-openhab-5-0/160573/233 "2024-12-14T07:52:34Z")
Regarding new features added in each mew major version, there is always a blog post published to announce them. This is of course a must to read. Here is where custom tags were announced; > **[openHAB 4.1 Release](https://www.openhab.org/blog/2023-12-22-openhab-4-1-release.html#extending-the-ontology-with-your-own-semantic-tags)** > > As usual before christmas, we are happy to announce a new release of openHAB, that brings many additions, improvements and fixes! For users preferring defining items in file, of course, metadata can be set easily in the same line you define your item. ---
**Author:** ![ErikDB](https://community.openhab.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/ac8455/32.png) [@ErikDB](https://community.openhab.org/u/ErikDB)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2024, 8:47am UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/ideas-and-discussion-what-features-do-you-want-in-openhab-5-0/160573/234 "2024-12-14T08:47:03Z")
I didn’t know there was a blog 😬 I always scroll through the release notes, but most of them are beyond me. Next time, I’ll search for the blog! (Or it might be an idea to put a link to the blog in the release notes.) ---
**Author:** ![rettsan\_wf](https://community.openhab.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/d26b3c/32.png) [@rettsan\_wf](https://community.openhab.org/u/rettsan_wf)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2024, 1:40pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/ideas-and-discussion-what-features-do-you-want-in-openhab-5-0/160573/237 "2024-12-14T13:40:18Z")
Perhaps it could be possible, to indroduce a mechanism, that there is no need to store user and password data in config file based configurations. I would like to save my openhab configuration at github… but with account data in the files, of course that is no way. Greetings, Thomas ---
**Author:** ![Pedro\_Liberal](https://community.openhab.org/user_avatar/community.openhab.org/pedro_liberal/32/113638_2.png) [@Pedro\_Liberal](https://community.openhab.org/u/Pedro_Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2024, 1:49pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/ideas-and-discussion-what-features-do-you-want-in-openhab-5-0/160573/238 "2024-12-14T13:49:06Z")
Oh!! Another 🙂 real user management. It’s a bother to have to go through CLI… sure most people will use the dashboards but would help in homes where development may be done by different people. ---
**Author:** ![rettsan\_wf](https://community.openhab.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/d26b3c/32.png) [@rettsan\_wf](https://community.openhab.org/u/rettsan_wf)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2024, 2:37pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/ideas-and-discussion-what-features-do-you-want-in-openhab-5-0/160573/239 "2024-12-14T14:37:45Z")
Even if I am the sole developer, using Git would have advantages. I would always have an overview of when and which changes were made and could easily roll back if there were any problems. Currently I have to maintain the headers in my files and note the changes there… like 20 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Andrew\_Rowe](https://community.openhab.org/user_avatar/community.openhab.org/andrew_rowe/32/37075_2.png) [@Andrew\_Rowe](https://community.openhab.org/u/Andrew_Rowe)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2024, 7:03pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/ideas-and-discussion-what-features-do-you-want-in-openhab-5-0/160573/252 "2024-12-14T19:03:14Z")
> [@ErikDB](#): > > I didn’t know there was a blog 😬 Actually, it is amazing how many people don’t know about it. There was talk of allowing people to contribute. Make better use of the blog people!!! OK > [@jimtng](#): > > > [@Kim\_Andersen](#): > > > > how users can easy create a good and modern looking dashboard from a few examples (templates), without having to deal with html, css etc… > > I think this might be far more easily achieved through the Sitemap / Basic UI route. We just need some different “Templates” / “Skins” to choose from. THIS is an epic idea! This is a great example of how a community can work! One user makes a suggestion. Another user comes up with a totally unique and novel way to address it. > [@On openHAB documentation and some more](https://community.openhab.org/t/on-openhab-documentation-and-some-more/160895/12): > > > [@On openHAB documentation and some more](https://community.openhab.org/t/on-openhab-documentation-and-some-more/160895/12): > > > > It’s much less complicated than you apparently think it is. > > The semantic model is essentially just additional groups and tags… > > That’s great, and my point is that I’m not sure if this comes clearly across. If I knew from the start that this is all it’s used for, it would have been much easier to estimate the implications of what I do there, and thus easier to handle. Here is another one! I agree that this may not be being made clear enough. I’m sorry, I’ve been here for 6 years and the semantic model totally $hits me. Sorry I have learned so much from this thread already. Things I never would have thought of. Let’s try to continue with an open mind and allow everyone to express their opinion and desire for future enhancements ---
**Author:** ![ohb1138](https://community.openhab.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/9f8e36/32.png) [@ohb1138](https://community.openhab.org/u/ohb1138)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2024, 12:19pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/ideas-and-discussion-what-features-do-you-want-in-openhab-5-0/160573/266 "2024-12-15T12:19:45Z")
Hi all, it is hard to read through all 263 posts as everybody has his/her own individual wish and perception. But I also like to give my comments as well from my perspective that hopefully give some constructive impulse to the discussion: 1. I would love to see a better integration of mobile devices into OH like effective geo fencing (e. g. AVM Smart Home App has it), push notifications from the app to the device screen and widgets to see/change/switch item values. (It is a wish 🙂) 2. I must also admit that I still use HABPanel as I do not get used to the Main UI. I am no programmer and hence I would not be able to build a dashboard like this in the Main UI ![Screenshot_20241215-125510_openHAB](https://community-openhab-org.s3.dualstack.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/original/3X/9/7/977ee2b5224e20e54aced73a1b9d181cbbf4523f.jpeg) 3. Also: the Main UI is organized by location e. g. House, floor, rooms but it if I would like to group by logic e. g. all window sensors, all thermostats, all power plugs then I get already lost. Maybe this is only because it is not as intuitive as it was with the sitemaps (quick file editing) or the easy arrangement of the widget tiles in HABPanel or at least the documentation does not get me there. I understood the concept of the “old” UIs within minutes or hours but if I now try to follow the topic how to customize the weather widget of the main UI I am lost. This is my personal feeling and this threat was opened to gather the wishes of the users. These are the three major features where I wish - from a non techie perspective experience - some enhancement to make it for me easier to understand and to use. I am fully aware that the techies of you are able to explain workarounds how to achieve this but from my perspective it is a lot of technical understanding necessary to follow this. I must also damit that I still use the old rule sets as I am not familiar with Javascript programming so that you have just an idea of my level of programming knowledge 😃 That have been my “2 cents” wishes for OH v5 🤩 Cheers Justus ---
**Author:** ![Lolodomo](https://community.openhab.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/ac91a4/32.png) [@Lolodomo](https://community.openhab.org/u/Lolodomo)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2024, 1:02pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/ideas-and-discussion-what-features-do-you-want-in-openhab-5-0/160573/268 "2024-12-15T13:02:23Z")
For the coming 4.3 announcement on the community forum, the message will link to the release notes for detailed content and to the blog post to be informed about the major changes. Reading the announcement is important, it is very short but can contain very important information. Reading the blog post is very useful for a normal user to be aware of new major changes. We try to be not too much technical. Finally reading the release notes is also very important as it provides upgrade instructions, breaking changes, … in addition to the full list of all contributions. This can be a partial reading. ---
**Author:** ![Lolodomo](https://community.openhab.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/ac91a4/32.png) [@Lolodomo](https://community.openhab.org/u/Lolodomo)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2024, 1:13pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/ideas-and-discussion-what-features-do-you-want-in-openhab-5-0/160573/269 "2024-12-15T13:13:20Z")
Finding announcements is I believe intuitive. When you are on the main page of the community forum, the announcements is the first category proposed: ![image](https://community-openhab-org.s3.dualstack.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/original/3X/7/7/778af3e51b35c03b37e376950b8d192c913e0a7b.png) Then when you enter in that category, you find immediately the announcements of each release: ![image](https://community-openhab-org.s3.dualstack.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/original/3X/3/d/3d4dad37d4c993f02a090ac6e40899df5f218f22.png) ---
**Author:** ![Lolodomo](https://community.openhab.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/ac91a4/32.png) [@Lolodomo](https://community.openhab.org/u/Lolodomo)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2024, 1:15pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/ideas-and-discussion-what-features-do-you-want-in-openhab-5-0/160573/270 "2024-12-15T13:15:43Z")
Look at announcement of last version 4.2, it already contained the link to the blog post and to the release notes: > [@openHAB 4.2 - our traditional summer release is here!](https://community.openhab.org/t/openhab-4-2-our-traditional-summer-release-is-here/157075): > > Dear community, I am thrilled to announce the availability of our latest traditional summer release: openHAB 4.2! Already one year has passed since our huge openHAB 4.0 release, and we are proud to have been able to keep the high development pace of our previous releases. openHAB 4.2 is packed with some major, exciting new features and countless improvements and bug fixes. Be it the One more thing moment for mobile notifications, or the enhanced persistence extensions - make sure to check ou… For chronological releases notes, you have this page in GitHub: > **[Releases · openhab/openhab-distro](https://github.com/openhab/openhab-distro/releases)** > > The binary distribution of openHAB. Contribute to openhab/openhab-distro development by creating an account on GitHub. The blog is also naturally chronological. ---
**Author:** ![hmerk](https://community.openhab.org/user_avatar/community.openhab.org/hmerk/32/56432_2.png) [@hmerk](https://community.openhab.org/u/hmerk)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2024, 2:28pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/ideas-and-discussion-what-features-do-you-want-in-openhab-5-0/160573/271 "2024-12-15T14:28:07Z")
> [@ohb1138](#): > > I am no programmer and hence I would not be able to build a dashboard like this in the Main U The widgets for such an overview do exist on the marketplace and a grid layout page would be best fit. No need to have coding skils to achieve this. I only have to admit that without customising, you will not have this unique look. Perhaps there will be someone willing to contribute some customised widgets… ---
**Author:** ![Pedro\_Liberal](https://community.openhab.org/user_avatar/community.openhab.org/pedro_liberal/32/113638_2.png) [@Pedro\_Liberal](https://community.openhab.org/u/Pedro_Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2024, 2:52pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/ideas-and-discussion-what-features-do-you-want-in-openhab-5-0/160573/272 "2024-12-15T14:52:50Z")
> [@ohb1138](#): > > 1. I would love to see a better integration of mobile devices into OH like effective geo fencing (e. > g. AVM Smart Home App has it), push notifications from the app to the device screen and widgets to see/change/switch item values. (It is a wish 🙂) Yes please. The iOS app lags a fair bit behind the android one I think. It would be very cool if we could expose more things like we do with android (alarm, battery charging state etc). No idea if possible though. > [@ohb1138](#): > > 1. Also: the Main UI is organized by location e. g. House, floor, rooms but it if I would like to group by logic e. g. all window sensors, all thermostats, all power plugs then I get already lost. ?? What? Wait, you really really need to go back and recheck this: Open any item, open the semantic class field, clear it (set to none) open that field again and scroll down through them. Make a mental note of those clusters of things you were mentioning before. I’ll give you an example: “blinds”. These are my blinds in the MainUI equipment tab: ![IMG_9932](https://community-openhab-org.s3.dualstack.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/original/3X/8/d/8da98a3e2a69bfda364e0875d49a6d769cf18e25.png) Making sense? All my blinds are there like you wanted in a neat little space. I even added a button for the auto mode. ![IMG_9933](https://community-openhab-org.s3.dualstack.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/original/3X/f/e/fea56914222be4b3f59379d7c092bfc6f4c7969b.png) How do you do that? You just need to pick “blinds” in the semantic class of your item. That’s it you are done after pressing save. ![IMG_9934](https://community-openhab-org.s3.dualstack.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/original/3X/8/0/802502876cb6b67bfd623e5a88d90e61fd0e0337.jpeg) Now do it for all thermostats (HVAC) or door / window sensors (pick the door or window as relevant, or simply “sensors” and dump different sensors in it.) and as you’re choosing the semantic class for each item the Equipment tab in mainUI is automatically filled. That’s it. You have three tabs: Location (rooms with equipment and points inside of each.) Equipment (I think this is what you want, it’s the actual device layer) Properties (I cluster here things like all temperature sensors. All humidity sensors , etc, independently of the location or equipment.) MainUI is absolutely fantastic, just play around with it a bit. Things fall into place I promise. ---
**Author:** ![hmerk](https://community.openhab.org/user_avatar/community.openhab.org/hmerk/32/56432_2.png) [@hmerk](https://community.openhab.org/u/hmerk)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2024, 2:57pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/ideas-and-discussion-what-features-do-you-want-in-openhab-5-0/160573/273 "2024-12-15T14:57:44Z")
> [@Pedro\_Liberal](#): > > battery charging I already get this from the iCloud binding and have a quick glance at all my iOS devices… ---
**Author:** ![Pedro\_Liberal](https://community.openhab.org/user_avatar/community.openhab.org/pedro_liberal/32/113638_2.png) [@Pedro\_Liberal](https://community.openhab.org/u/Pedro_Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2024, 3:03pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/ideas-and-discussion-what-features-do-you-want-in-openhab-5-0/160573/275 "2024-12-15T15:03:47Z")
> [@hmerk](#): > > > [@Pedro\_Liberal](#): > > > > battery charging > > I already get this from the iCloud binding and have a quick glance at all my iOS devices… Huh? 🤔 didn’t the iCloud binding broke with the 2step auth?? I have to read the documentation again, I must have missed something.. thank you 😊 ---
**Author:** ![hmerk](https://community.openhab.org/user_avatar/community.openhab.org/hmerk/32/56432_2.png) [@hmerk](https://community.openhab.org/u/hmerk)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2024, 3:12pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/ideas-and-discussion-what-features-do-you-want-in-openhab-5-0/160573/276 "2024-12-15T15:12:12Z")
> [@Pedro\_Liberal](#): > > didn’t the iCloud binding broke with the 2step auth?? Apple fixed it and it is working again, at least here 😉 ---
**Author:** ![ohb1138](https://community.openhab.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/9f8e36/32.png) [@ohb1138](https://community.openhab.org/u/ohb1138)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2024, 3:20pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/ideas-and-discussion-what-features-do-you-want-in-openhab-5-0/160573/278 "2024-12-15T15:20:06Z")
> [@hmerk](#): > > The widgets for such an overview do exist on the marketplace and a grid layout page would be best fit. No need to have coding skils to achieve this. I only have to admit that without customising, you will not have this unique look. Perhaps there will be someone willing to contribute some customised widgets… Hello @hmerk, I did not take a look at the marketplace for a while. I will give it a try but I am still convinced that the freely adjusting the weather information is not (yet) so flexible as it is in my HABPanel dashboard. I will use the free time over the xmas holidays to give a new try for the Main UI 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![hmerk](https://community.openhab.org/user_avatar/community.openhab.org/hmerk/32/56432_2.png) [@hmerk](https://community.openhab.org/u/hmerk)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2024, 4:02pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/ideas-and-discussion-what-features-do-you-want-in-openhab-5-0/160573/280 "2024-12-15T16:02:14Z")
> [@ohb1138](#): > > that the freely adjusting the weather information is not (yet) so flexible as it is in my HABPanel dashboard I gave it a closer look and think, you don’t really need marketplace widgets, just standards. I will give it a try this evening, should be possible in under one hour 😉 ---
**Author:** ![mstormi](https://community.openhab.org/user_avatar/community.openhab.org/mstormi/32/55857_2.png) [@mstormi](https://community.openhab.org/u/mstormi)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2024, 4:38pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/ideas-and-discussion-what-features-do-you-want-in-openhab-5-0/160573/283 "2024-12-15T16:38:42Z")
> [@On openHAB documentation and some more](https://community.openhab.org/t/on-openhab-documentation-and-some-more/160895/43): > > Now sure… sure, openHAB already has rules and blocky… Right, it can already do what nodeRED does, so there’s no real benefit in using that at all. Hence probably no interest among developers to work on that. Sorry for you. ---
**Author:** ![Pedro\_Liberal](https://community.openhab.org/user_avatar/community.openhab.org/pedro_liberal/32/113638_2.png) [@Pedro\_Liberal](https://community.openhab.org/u/Pedro_Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2024, 4:50pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/ideas-and-discussion-what-features-do-you-want-in-openhab-5-0/160573/284 "2024-12-15T16:50:41Z")
> [@mstormi](#): > > Right, it can already do what nodeRED does, Not really though. If you have something else that interacts with node red (like home assistant. Or any of the many nodes available) but doesn’t work directly with OpenHAB, then node red is a great option. Just recently I was on a thread about (I think) a dreame vaccum and to integrate with OpenHAB a home assistant instance was setup. ---
**Author:** ![hmerk](https://community.openhab.org/user_avatar/community.openhab.org/hmerk/32/56432_2.png) [@hmerk](https://community.openhab.org/u/hmerk)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2024, 5:23pm UTC](https://community.openhab.org/t/ideas-and-discussion-what-features-do-you-want-in-openhab-5-0/160573/286 "2024-12-15T17:23:48Z")
> [@ohb1138](#): > > I will use the free time over the xmas holidays to give a new try for the Main UI Quick and dirty (Did not have all Items/icons), just 30 minutes work, pure MainUi, no tweaking and no additional widgets used : ![image](https://community-openhab-org.s3.dualstack.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/original/3X/7/1/71e4ecdaf7a2581ef37195cc61118d13b8e720d4.png) [Previous page](https://community.openhab.org/t/ideas-and-discussion-what-features-do-you-want-in-openhab-5-0/160573.md?page=11) [Next page](https://community.openhab.org/t/ideas-and-discussion-what-features-do-you-want-in-openhab-5-0/160573.md?page=13)