Ideas and Discussion: What Features Do You Want in openHAB 5.0?

This is a good read [OH3] Semantic Model setup via tags in configuration Items files

1 Like

On my wish-list for OH5 there would be improvements for mobile devices, e.g.

  • Add alphabetic index for items (it’s there within rules and things but missing within items)
  • Option to add and edit tags of rules and items

Better file based config (a very hot topic).

I think an easy step forward would be if the complete configurations could be dynamically loaded/unloaded from json/xml/whatever files during runtime.
These json files should represent how the configuration is done internally and not provide any convenience. They are - as a direct result - also openHAB version specific.
The implementation is thus much simpler and less work.
That way various configuration formats could be piloted by creating a simple config-file → json converter.
It would still allow changing / sharing / versioning and programmatically creation of files and at least it would be a step forward.


Rework of things.

The current thing implementation has various shortcomings that leads to lots issues and flaky workarounds to make things work. Without a proper fix there will always issues and problems because they are there by design.
Most notable the
Thing configuration
Thing data

Unfortunately it’s a huge undertaking and architectural changes are always less attractive than new features. But I already know of some people - including me - who migrated away from bindings because of these shortcomings.

In the end I don’t care about a fancy UI if every restart is a gamble e.g. whether or not my smoke alarms/shutters/etc. will work


Quality of life improvements for MQTT Binding

There are many integrations for MQTT available where there is no adequate openHAB binding.
Some quality of life improvements for data type conversions would make a huge difference.

1 Like

This is already there.

Can you please create a feature request issue for this in the UI repo?

Can you please create a separate forum thread for this voice assistant topic, so it doesn’t get lost in this thread here (which will likely grow huge)?
I have a few plans for assistance functionality and openHAB 5, and if someone helps with the ESP code I think we could get something up and running.

2 Likes

Done have a look here

Maybe you want to move it please feel free @moderators

Not really strictly related to openHAB 5 but a wish for upcoming updates in general:
Add a short explanation to release notes on new features.

You developers put so much effort into adding new features to openHAB and everybody is really thankful for your work. When it comes to a new update and I always read release notes and follow the link to Github and try to understand this new feature. But I fail. There is no additional information available. Often I do not even figure out if the new feature is available for me as a user or if it is an addition to core which is relevant for developers only. This is really a pity as a lot of work of you guys might not get through to semi-advanced users.

My humble wish for updates starting with oh5 is to have a tag (like user-relevant and developer-relevant) and a very brief description what this new feature does.

2 Likes

Maybe this isn’t the correct place, since it’s not really openHAB development, but I would love it if the Android app were a bit smoother. If I change my screen from portrait to landscape, the app resets to the welcome screen.

5 Likes

Must be unique to your phone.
It stays on the same page on my Motorola (using Sitemaps on BasicUI).

I wouldn’t be too sure… There are strange people out there which built Campers with openHAB. And they already complained about not being able to set the openHAB location dynamically out of the box…

4 Likes

afaik most of the bindings are only configured as hardware is, not to change hardware, so for example, openHAB can’t setup a rollershutter channel to work in reverse mode, this is to be changed within the device itself. in openHAB you only have to follow the settings of the device.

I’m aware of zwave binding is being very different here :slight_smile:
But at least it’s questionable how many bindings will be able to control hardware settings at all, so, is it worth the effort?

I rechecked and you’re partly right: The function is there but it only works on Iphones. On Android the problem seems to be that the Enter-key is not recognized. Tried on all browsers.
I’ll create issues for both.

Our release blog posts always cover this, but we can link to the blog post from the release notes.
Please have a look at the openHAB Blog | openHAB.

The blog post covers just selected (major?) new features. I am talking about a short explanation of release notes on Github:

I assume you’re referring to Main UI in the app? If so, this is an issue with the way WebViews work and how orientation changes are handled: when changing orientation, the app is basically restarted and reloads the state it saved before. Unfortunately for WebViews the only save able piece of state is the URL. So to fix this, Main UI would need to encode its current navigation path inside the URL.
We’ve thought about this issue for several times already, but haven’t come up with a good solution without Main UI changes, and I’m not sure there actually is a good solution for that.

Okido, thanks for the context. :slight_smile:

Thank you. That helps a lot!

Full properly working HA convention MQTT auto-discovery implementation :+1:

Wishlist for OH 5.0? :star_struck:

Presently, I use both with home assistant as binding for openHAB.

What I would like to see in OH5:

  • Make the UI’s more modern. Compare to other popular UI’s and make a lot more acceptable to everbody.
  • Energy management and transition are the place to be in the near future. Make managing the energy of the home out of the box.
  • Focus more on out of the box solutions instead of having everything pulling together. For me it’s a lego box where I can build stuff with, and I like that, but future expectations lean more towards out of the box solutions for managing all sort of things in the domestic house like energy, lightning, alarm, etc.
  • make us of genAI to generate rules and stuff. Already very helpfull but can do much more.

cheers,
emiel