I would like to have an image I can click on, which is replaced by another image to reflect the state (acknowledge the button press). This triggers a KNX scene and therefore it has to be a push button function, i.e. the state is returning to OFF automatically. And all this done on my mobile when I am not at home.
I have the basic functionality working, i.e. the thing and item (I used expire for the push button function). When implementing it as switch it works in Basic UI with default representation. Item is:
But I completely failed on the image part. I searched for hours now and my conclusion is this: you can have an image as button with HABpanel, but not with Basic UI. You can have secure remote access with Basic UI (I use myopenHAB and this is working too), but not with HABpanel.
Either it is so easy that nobody needs help on this, or it is not possible to have what I want. In the first case I have to live with the fact that I am as dumb as a walnut, in the second I wonder if I was right to choose openHAB (I tried Home Assistant before, but I think it is weak on the conceptional basis)?
So this is the dilemma. To be hones I cannot believe this. Can it be true that one of the widespread solution for home automation does not allow me to have an image I can use as a button from remote?
This is incorrect. You can access HABPanel through myopenhab.org. You should elaborate on what you tried and what specifically doesn’t work. This is routinely done.
Thanks for the help. You are right, HABPanel would be the only thing to go, if it weren’t for the login issue. Safari asks me every time to login, and even with stored credentials I think it takes too long. And in addition it is not full screen. Creating a desktop link opens it in full screen, but then you cannot use the stored credentials and have to login manually every time. I think a native app would be good.
I am new to OH and do not want to bash a system I do not know in detail, but to be honest I am a little bit disappointed about all these shortcomings. I hope it will get better in the future.
Anyway my question is answered (although not as I had hoped for). Thanks again for the quick replies.
This sounds a whole lot like a Safari problem more so than a HABPanel problem. I know of many many users who use HABPanel in just the way you described with the login problems. Are you in a Mac or iPad/iPhone?
As Vincent mentioned, there is beta support for HABPanel in the Android app. I know many users are running HABPanel quite successfully in kiosk mode on Windows and Linux. There is a Windows app on the Windows store.
I think what you want is well supported, just not in Apple’s walled garden. I’ve found that support on those platforms tend to lag a bit. I blame the barriors to entry Apple places in from of developers to code for their systems. I for one couldn’t justify purchasing a Mac and spending $100 a year to contribute to an open source project
I tried it on my iPhone as this is my primary usecase (coming home and coffee is ready, or sauna is hot and ready). Apple’s philosophy is definitely problematic and I am not a fan-boy at all. However, effort is too high to change this now, so I am stuck.
I think it is a mix of both. The way OH is setup is also not perfect. Built-in security shouldn’t be too much to expect. This part is much better solved with Home Assistant for example. Also the whole concept of HABPanel with this dynamic grid but fixed icon sizes, Basic UI’s shortcomings with images (especially remote), and so forth. It seems to me OH was not developed with remote access in mind, which I personally find strange.
Sorry, I really do not mean to start a discussion about OH is good or bad, etc. In the end this is a decision everyone has to make for her/himself.
What I did for now is to set-up a reverse proxy on my NAS and use the Basic UI app on the iphone. This does not look fancy, but it works reliable.
To be honest, I will go back to Home Assistant and re-evaluate it. I changed to OH because I found the effort too high to get what I wanted and didn’t like some restrictions and concepts. But now I am not sure which system is more effort in the end…
Thanks again for the helping hand and good suggestions.
It was developed with remote access through the openHAB Cloud server (either hosting your own or using the freely provided myopenhab.org instance) in mind. It’s not that remote access was ignored, it’s that remote access through a NAT is not in mind to enable that remote access.
It may not be support for remote access in the way you would have chosen, and it isn’t the approach I would have chosen, but that doesn’t mean we’ve completely ignored remote access. And, like I said, the problems you experienced seem to be specific to your browser. Maybe it would work better with Chrome?
As with any open source project, HA included, it’s not enough to expect something. It’s not enough to want something. Someone has to step up and donate their time to develop it. There were some significant impediments to implementation of authorization and authentication in OH 2 and ultimately no one volunteered to implement it. OH has a much longer history of choices and decisions that have to be dealt with. There was some pretty weak authorization and authentication in OH 1.x but that never made it into OH 2.
Authorization and authentication built into OH itself IS on the list of top priorities for OH 3, but that doesn’t help you now. But some of what is discussed is going to be really cool. We might be able to give access to Things and Items on a per user basis letting us not only lock down OH as a whole, but lock down certain parts of our configurations. Of course it’s all talk at the moment. A developer (or two or three) will have to actually code it.
I’ve spent a good deal of time lurking on the HA forums as well as considerable time here on this forum. When it comes to how much effort one takes over the other; they both take a lot of effort. I smile at many of the postings over there because they are dealing with their own flavor of the same problems we are dealing with over here. We are living in a veritable zoo of home automation standards and both projects are trying their hardest to bridge between them all. In some areas OH is ahead. In others HA is ahead. Which one is less effort is going to very greatly depend on which specific technologies you want to use and what you want to do with them. But in ALL cases it’s going to be a lot of work for you to get it working. There will be compromises. There will be workarounds.
Thanks for the open and helpful insight and your opinion. It seems, my expectations are just too high and not fair given the resources.
I am pretty good in creating concepts and principles and I admit there are many things I would have done differently. To be honest, for the 2nd generation of such a system I see surprisingly numerous design weaknesses, even with the basic concepts. Unfortunately I am not so good in programming and time is very limited too. So contributing is not an option.
Regarding the security and scarce resources: Was it really the idea to code OH Cloud instead of built-in security, because it is less effort? Well, interesting…
However, I already learned to live with what is there, i.e. I use Basic UI with the standard layout and that’s it. Not nice, not fancy, but working, at home and remotely. There are some flaws (e.g. another thing I do not understand, why there is no “reverse” flag for rollershutters? Unfortunately all my shutters have been wired in the wrong way and I am reluctant to change all of them, so I have to use the UP button for down and vice versa in Basic UI; I would have implemented a reverse option for all items by default, but that’s just me).
The cloud access existed long before OH 2 was released. It was built for those who are unable or unwilling to safely punch a hole through their firewall and expose their network to the internet. IMO, those who are able of doing this safely wouldn’t be willing to do so when there are other alternatives available to more easily adjudicate that connect with less work. If you don’t want to use myopenhab.org, you can host your own instance of the openHAB Cloud Server on an AWS instance or on your home machines, hopefully put in a DMZ.
I am a security engineer by trade. I’d have my credentials taken away if I recommended “average joes” open up ports on their firewall without the tools and training (all of which is out of scope for OH) necessary to monitor those services and limit the damage that can be done should the service be attacked. And without going into details, from a security perspective, OH 2 is pretty much “unsafe at any speed.” It is absolutely not suitable to be exposed to the Internet directly. Adding in authentication and authorization isn’t going to fix that. There are a lot of changes that will be necessary, many of which are on the plans to be implemented by the devs, before I’d personally recommend even using NGINX to expose OH to the Internet.
No one has asked for it to my knowledge and no one who has coded the Rollershutters thought to add it.
This sort of thing would properly be implemented in the Binding and be configured on the Thing.
