Mixed configuration with Hue (Text and HABmin)

Tutorials & Examples
1

I’m new to Openhab and have been doing considerable reading over the past few weeks. I had my Hue system working in OH2 with the text files, but I’ve started over using Habmin to set it up this time. Now, provided I use the controls dialog in Paper UI, I have control of my lights, but I also have items configured in my .items file ( for use with the Basic UI) using the new OH2 Hue binding structure ({channel=…}). When I try to control the Hue lights via the Basic UI, I have no luck. The log tells me it cannot find the channel item in question. Do I have to manually create a .things file for the item definitions to work even if Habmin has configured everything already? Do text based “items” require text based “things”? Could it be that Habmin has used a different name (other than bulb1…) for its thing definition (ex: {channel="hue:0210:1:bulb1:color})? If so where would I go to find the new name (I’ve tried a few options to no avail)?

Would be nice to also have a UI which actually builds the text files. Text files are far easier to tweak than a database (which is where I understand Habmin places configuration information).

2

The channels are listed in the Things section of Habmin.

However, you need to replace the “_” with “:”. My Item mapped to the above channel is:

Switch S_C_Cerberos "Cerberos Power"
    <poweroutlet> (gHistory)
    { zwave="zwave:device:528f7aca:node8:switch_binary" }

It is possible to do almost all of your configuration through text files and the Karaf console, but with certain bindings like Zwave, that is a challenge at this time.

3

Thanks, I’ve managed to get the Hue bulbs working via the text files doing exactly as you indicated above (replacing the _ with the : in the channel= statement.

{channel=“hue:0210:001788214bd8:2:color”}

Now my only seems to be that smarthouse does not seem to be picking up the insteonplm items I’ve defined in my items file. It always did before upgrading to the latest version (build 400 I believe), but now none of those items are available to me. They don’t show up as items when I list items in the Karaf console and they are not added in the log file. Prior to this version they were loading just fine using the same .items file.