Looking to replace Smartthings with openHAB, need advice

Setup, Configuration and Use Beginners
41

You can probably ignore the FireMotD errors. FireMotD just displays some system information when you ssh to the machine and doesn’t impact the functionality of anything else. I see those errors on the Ubuntu 20 VMs I’m running to.

But please use How to use code fences.

I’ve not seen that error before but it’s clearly complaining about a missing library which implies that there is something wrong with the Java install. I would not be surprised if it tried to install the ARM version of the JDK. You may not be able to do unattended for an Ubuntu VM on a non-arm machine and may need to manually choose the right Java from openhabian-config or, if there isn’t one, install Java yourself.

1 Like
42

I’ve run openHAB in a VMWare VM, Docker on Synology and RaspberryPi

VMWare:

  1. The community free version is crippled - main issue being backup/restore (there are manual ways around this but it’s a bit of a pain)
  2. I was using a HP ML110 - 90% of the time it was only running openHAB - such a waste of electricity and noise and heat for such a small application
  3. Power outages when I was not at home left the wife unable to restart the home automation

Docker on Synology:

  1. Most home Synology NAS devices (DS1512+ costing $1k without disks) don’t have good computational capability to run virtual environments - Docker/openHAB was slow, home device response times were poor
  2. Keeping openHAB running in Docker was a hassle - every Synology and Docker upgrade made me nervous and wasted my time

RaspberryPi

  1. Low cost, power, heat (provided you don’t use a RPi4)
  2. Absolutely no need for a RPi4 - even with the bios update it runs hot which is not good for 24x7 devices - on my RPi3 I’m using 49% memory - my RPi3 provides immediate device actions so don’t need more CPU power
  3. openHABian is awesome - fast to setup, heaps of features, has backup facilities
  4. Provided you use a quality SD card (16 or 32 gb) you should not need to worry about SD card failure for years
  5. Due to implementing persistence (a lot of continual IO) and grafana I now boot of a USB SSD - the IO speed is faster

I also played with Samsung SmartThings - too slow, clunky and needs an external internet connection which displeases me

Just my experience…

2 Likes
43

Thanks for your post. Nothing like reading about experience like yours to help new users to an easier start.

44

Thanks for everyone’s help, reloading and using the manual setup did the trick.

Now I just need to find the time to start playing with it…