Yes - the database, and the source code are linked. Features in the database rely on features in the sourcecode. Also, OH doesn’t support the database to be external to the binding, so even if we wanted to do this, OH doesn’t allow this.
Now, you might get lucky, and you might be able to edit the 2.2 binding to add new XML files, and this might work if the device is simple. See the following link for how to edit the binding, but note that there is no guarantee that this will work without updating some Java code as well.
