I have an older RTI AD8X 8 zone audio amplifier/distribution system wired into my house that I’ d LOVE to integrate with openhab. The AD8X has a web interface that is available for control and it turns out someone over on the HomeAssistant side has setup a python bridge interfacing with an mqtt broker to manage the control. Details here.
Having no experience with either mqtt or python I’m a bit hesitant to start this project in OH without a bit more information, so I’m looking for advice. I think my first question would be is it possible to setup an mqtt integration between the AD8X receiver and openhab using a python based bridge and then expose the mqtt topics as things in OH using something like the mqtt addon?
Personally, I favour MQTT over any proproetary solution like bindings whenever possible, as I find it more flexible, less worrisome with major openHAB version changes where dedicated bindings often lag behind, and with MQTT being controller agnostic.
With the last point also meaning, yes, any Python bridge solution publishing to MQTT will also be able to be received by any controller - Home Assistant, FHEM, Jeedom, Supla … as well as openHAB or any other controller supporting MQTT.
I only briefly looked at the bridge repository, and with you being inexperienced with both Python and MQTT I’d strongly advice to initially test installing the bridge on a separate Raspberry Pi. With an MQTT broker I’d recommend installing Mosquito, especially if you are using openHABian on another Pi. Also an MQTT monitoring tool will be very helpful to understand MQTT messages, with the most popular being MQTT Explorer. With MQTT Explorer’s current uncertain future though, also want to mention others like MQTTX, MQTTAnalyzer, mqttk etc.
Install the Python bridge on a RPi and familiarise yourself with the MQTt message the bridge publishes. Then the integration into openHAb with the MQTT binding should become a lot clearer.
