Node-RED as Alternative Rule Engine

[BrutalBirdie (Elias)]

@rgerrans Thank you SO MUCH you reduced my Rule from

TO

[rgerrans]

@BrutalBirdie

Thank you SO MUCH

Happy to help!! Node-RED is pretty powerful once you get into it and start figuring out some of the tricks

[dakipro (dalibor)]

Could you please share the code for your “day/ time triggers / time states”?
The ones on the photo, determining if it is day/night/evening, early/evening etc…
I would really need something like that
Thanks!

[rgerrans]

@dakipro

please share the code for your “day/ time triggers / time states”?

No problem. This uses the BigTimer node:

[{"id":"c45af9b0.53c638","type":"comment","z":"864e4169.fd187","name":"Set Time of Day | Brightness","info":"","x":156.66664505004883,"y":184.00002098083496,"wires":[]},{"id":"61bf26de.c159b8","type":"bigtimer","z":"864e4169.fd187","outtopic":"","outpayload1":"OVERNIGHT","outpayload2":"","name":"Overnight","lat":"39.7388","lon":"-104.4083","starttime":"0","endtime":"300","startoff":"0","endoff":0,"offs":0,"outtext1":"","outtext2":"","timeout":1440,"sun":true,"mon":true,"tue":true,"wed":true,"thu":true,"fri":true,"sat":true,"jan":true,"feb":true,"mar":true,"apr":true,"may":true,"jun":true,"jul":true,"aug":true,"sep":true,"oct":true,"nov":true,"dec":true,"day1":0,"month1":0,"day2":0,"month2":0,"day3":0,"month3":0,"day4":0,"month4":0,"day5":0,"month5":0,"d1":0,"w1":0,"d2":0,"w2":0,"d3":0,"w3":0,"d4":0,"w4":0,"d5":0,"w5":0,"suspend":false,"random":false,"repeat":true,"atstart":true,"x":159.11106872558594,"y":278.16669845581055,"wires":[["3ec73a0b.fbe2b6"],[],[]]},{"id":"fc914835.8a0988","type":"bigtimer","z":"864e4169.fd187","outtopic":"","outpayload1":"PREDAWN","outpayload2":"","name":"Predawn","lat":"39.7388","lon":"-104.4083","starttime":"300","endtime":"5003","startoff":"0","endoff":0,"offs":0,"outtext1":"","outtext2":"","timeout":1440,"sun":true,"mon":true,"tue":true,"wed":true,"thu":true,"fri":true,"sat":true,"jan":true,"feb":true,"mar":true,"apr":true,"may":true,"jun":true,"jul":true,"aug":true,"sep":true,"oct":true,"nov":true,"dec":true,"day1":0,"month1":0,"day2":0,"month2":0,"day3":0,"month3":0,"day4":0,"month4":0,"day5":0,"month5":0,"d1":0,"w1":0,"d2":0,"w2":0,"d3":0,"w3":0,"d4":0,"w4":0,"d5":0,"w5":0,"suspend":false,"random":false,"repeat":true,"atstart":false,"x":162.55552291870117,"y":350.5555953979492,"wires":[["3ec73a0b.fbe2b6"],[],[]]},{"id":"688d5da0.d98254","type":"bigtimer","z":"864e4169.fd187","outtopic":"","outpayload1":"EARLYMORNING","outpayload2":"","name":"Early Morning","lat":"39.7388","lon":"-104.4083","starttime":"5003","endtime":"10030","startoff":"0","endoff":0,"offs":0,"outtext1":"","outtext2":"","timeout":1440,"sun":true,"mon":true,"tue":true,"wed":true,"thu":true,"fri":true,"sat":true,"jan":true,"feb":true,"mar":true,"apr":true,"may":true,"jun":true,"jul":true,"aug":true,"sep":true,"oct":true,"nov":true,"dec":true,"day1":0,"month1":0,"day2":0,"month2":0,"day3":0,"month3":0,"day4":0,"month4":0,"day5":0,"month5":0,"d1":0,"w1":0,"d2":0,"w2":0,"d3":0,"w3":0,"d4":0,"w4":0,"d5":0,"w5":0,"suspend":false,"random":false,"repeat":true,"atstart":false,"x":143.55552291870117,"y":414.5555953979492,"wires":[["3ec73a0b.fbe2b6"],[],[]]},{"id":"d2b91ab3.9a2928","type":"bigtimer","z":"864e4169.fd187","outtopic":"","outpayload1":"MORNING","outpayload2":"","name":"Morning","lat":"39.7388","lon":"-104.4083","starttime":"5003","endtime":"480","startoff":"30","endoff":0,"offs":0,"outtext1":"","outtext2":"","timeout":1440,"sun":true,"mon":true,"tue":true,"wed":true,"thu":true,"fri":true,"sat":true,"jan":true,"feb":true,"mar":true,"apr":true,"may":true,"jun":true,"jul":true,"aug":true,"sep":true,"oct":true,"nov":true,"dec":true,"day1":0,"month1":0,"day2":0,"month2":0,"day3":0,"month3":0,"day4":0,"month4":0,"day5":0,"month5":0,"d1":0,"w1":0,"d2":0,"w2":0,"d3":0,"w3":0,"d4":0,"w4":0,"d5":0,"w5":0,"suspend":false,"random":false,"repeat":true,"atstart":false,"x":157.55552291870117,"y":476.5555953979492,"wires":[["3ec73a0b.fbe2b6"],[],[]]},{"id":"d039dca9.0943e","type":"bigtimer","z":"864e4169.fd187","outtopic":"","outpayload1":"DAY","outpayload2":"","name":"Day","lat":"39.7388","lon":"-104.4083","starttime":"480","endtime":"1020","startoff":"0","endoff":"0","offs":0,"outtext1":"","outtext2":"","timeout":1440,"sun":true,"mon":true,"tue":true,"wed":true,"thu":true,"fri":true,"sat":true,"jan":true,"feb":true,"mar":true,"apr":true,"may":true,"jun":true,"jul":true,"aug":true,"sep":true,"oct":true,"nov":true,"dec":true,"day1":0,"month1":0,"day2":0,"month2":0,"day3":0,"month3":0,"day4":0,"month4":0,"day5":0,"month5":0,"d1":0,"w1":0,"d2":0,"w2":0,"d3":0,"w3":0,"d4":0,"w4":0,"d5":0,"w5":0,"suspend":false,"random":false,"repeat":true,"atstart":false,"x":164.55552291870117,"y":538.5555953979492,"wires":[["3ec73a0b.fbe2b6"],[],[]]},{"id":"9d32cecc.e26ef","type":"bigtimer","z":"864e4169.fd187","outtopic":"","outpayload1":"EARLYEVENING","outpayload2":"","name":"Early Evening","lat":"39.7388","lon":"-104.4083","starttime":"5004","endtime":"5004","startoff":"-30","endoff":"0","offs":0,"outtext1":"","outtext2":"","timeout":1440,"sun":true,"mon":true,"tue":true,"wed":true,"thu":true,"fri":true,"sat":true,"jan":true,"feb":true,"mar":true,"apr":true,"may":true,"jun":true,"jul":true,"aug":true,"sep":true,"oct":true,"nov":true,"dec":true,"day1":0,"month1":0,"day2":0,"month2":0,"day3":0,"month3":0,"day4":0,"month4":0,"day5":0,"month5":0,"d1":0,"w1":0,"d2":0,"w2":0,"d3":0,"w3":0,"d4":0,"w4":0,"d5":0,"w5":0,"suspend":false,"random":false,"repeat":true,"atstart":false,"x":134.3872413635254,"y":677.4373073577881,"wires":[["3ec73a0b.fbe2b6"],[],[]]},{"id":"96c18988.8c7378","type":"bigtimer","z":"864e4169.fd187","outtopic":"","outpayload1":"NIGHT","outpayload2":"","name":"Night","lat":"39.7388","lon":"-104.4083","starttime":"1320","endtime":"0","startoff":"0","endoff":"-1","offs":0,"outtext1":"","outtext2":"","timeout":1440,"sun":true,"mon":true,"tue":true,"wed":true,"thu":true,"fri":true,"sat":true,"jan":true,"feb":true,"mar":true,"apr":true,"may":true,"jun":true,"jul":true,"aug":true,"sep":true,"oct":true,"nov":true,"dec":true,"day1":0,"month1":0,"day2":0,"month2":0,"day3":0,"month3":0,"day4":0,"month4":0,"day5":0,"month5":0,"d1":0,"w1":0,"d2":0,"w2":0,"d3":0,"w3":0,"d4":0,"w4":0,"d5":0,"w5":0,"suspend":false,"random":false,"repeat":true,"atstart":false,"x":167.6313362121582,"y":811.2854614257812,"wires":[["3ec73a0b.fbe2b6"],[],[]]},{"id":"3ec73a0b.fbe2b6","type":"rbe","z":"864e4169.fd187","name":"","func":"rbe","gap":"","start":"","inout":"out","x":506.5555229187012,"y":474.5555953979492,"wires":[["468281e5.68642","1d9ab6c.bfaa549","d151189a.32ff38","81eeb71e.387a48","a3eed122.99881"]]},{"id":"468281e5.68642","type":"change","z":"864e4169.fd187","name":"Define Brightness","rules":[{"t":"change","p":"payload","pt":"msg","from":"OVERNIGHT","fromt":"str","to":"15","tot":"num"},{"t":"change","p":"payload","pt":"msg","from":"PREDAWN","fromt":"str","to":"30","tot":"num"},{"t":"change","p":"payload","pt":"msg","from":"EARLYMORNING","fromt":"str","to":"45","tot":"num"},{"t":"change","p":"payload","pt":"msg","from":"MORNING","fromt":"str","to":"60","tot":"num"},{"t":"change","p":"payload","pt":"msg","from":"DAY","fromt":"str","to":"100","tot":"num"},{"t":"change","p":"payload","pt":"msg","from":"AFTERNOON","fromt":"str","to":"100","tot":"num"},{"t":"change","p":"payload","pt":"msg","from":"EARLYEVENING","fromt":"str","to":"80","tot":"num"},{"t":"change","p":"payload","pt":"msg","from":"EVENING","fromt":"str","to":"60","tot":"num"},{"t":"change","p":"payload","pt":"msg","from":"NIGHT","fromt":"str","to":"45","tot":"num"}],"action":"","property":"","from":"","to":"","reg":false,"x":698.5555419921875,"y":422.55560302734375,"wires":[["73b2b60f.766a28"]]},{"id":"1d9ab6c.bfaa549","type":"switch","z":"864e4169.fd187","name":"Day Mode","property":"payload","propertyType":"msg","rules":[{"t":"eq","v":"DAY","vt":"str"},{"t":"eq","v":"NIGHT","vt":"str"}],"checkall":"false","outputs":2,"x":695.5555229187012,"y":508.5555953979492,"wires":[["8bd48998.e8c2a8"],["8bd48998.e8c2a8"]]},{"id":"d151189a.32ff38","type":"change","z":"864e4169.fd187","name":"Sun Mode","rules":[{"t":"change","p":"payload","pt":"msg","from":"EARLYMORNING","fromt":"str","to":"DAY","tot":"str"},{"t":"change","p":"payload","pt":"msg","from":"EVENING","fromt":"str","to":"NIGHT","tot":"str"}],"action":"","property":"","from":"","to":"","reg":false,"x":696.5555229187012,"y":554.5555953979492,"wires":[["ec198d17.24b15"]]},{"id":"73b2b60f.766a28","type":"change","z":"864e4169.fd187","name":"Set Brightness","rules":[{"t":"set","p":"dbrightness","pt":"global","to":"payload","tot":"msg"}],"action":"","property":"","from":"","to":"","reg":false,"x":1083.5975341796875,"y":424.18359375,"wires":[[]]},{"id":"81eeb71e.387a48","type":"change","z":"864e4169.fd187","name":"Set Time of Day","rules":[{"t":"set","p":"timeOfDay","pt":"global","to":"payload","tot":"msg"}],"action":"","property":"","from":"","to":"","reg":false,"x":1087.8374633789062,"y":471.3825988769531,"wires":[[]]},{"id":"a3eed122.99881","type":"link out","z":"864e4169.fd187","name":"Time of Day Change","links":["9af5cc96.c2cbd","cfa23785.6aaa78","4a5c0149.deb94","973e5ede.1789b","a79a4c47.9e235","4cd5da16.4ecd54"],"x":654.8475151062012,"y":686.4936141967773,"wires":[]},{"id":"bdc8bfc7.1eb36","type":"bigtimer","z":"864e4169.fd187","outtopic":"","outpayload1":"EVENING","outpayload2":"","name":" Evening","lat":"39.7388","lon":"-104.4083","starttime":"5004","endtime":"1320","startoff":"0","endoff":"0","offs":0,"outtext1":"","outtext2":"","timeout":1440,"sun":true,"mon":true,"tue":true,"wed":true,"thu":true,"fri":true,"sat":true,"jan":true,"feb":true,"mar":true,"apr":true,"may":true,"jun":true,"jul":true,"aug":true,"sep":true,"oct":true,"nov":true,"dec":true,"day1":0,"month1":0,"day2":0,"month2":0,"day3":0,"month3":0,"day4":0,"month4":0,"day5":0,"month5":0,"d1":0,"w1":0,"d2":0,"w2":0,"d3":0,"w3":0,"d4":0,"w4":0,"d5":0,"w5":0,"suspend":false,"random":false,"repeat":true,"atstart":false,"x":148.96030807495117,"y":738.7908229827881,"wires":[["3ec73a0b.fbe2b6"],[],[]]},{"id":"8c6e86f.717ee78","type":"bigtimer","z":"864e4169.fd187","outtopic":"","outpayload1":"AFTERNOON","outpayload2":"","name":"Afternoon","lat":"39.7388","lon":"-104.4083","starttime":"1020","endtime":"5004","startoff":"0","endoff":"-30","offs":0,"outtext1":"","outtext2":"","timeout":1440,"sun":true,"mon":true,"tue":true,"wed":true,"thu":true,"fri":true,"sat":true,"jan":false,"feb":false,"mar":true,"apr":true,"may":true,"jun":true,"jul":true,"aug":true,"sep":true,"oct":true,"nov":false,"dec":false,"day1":0,"month1":0,"day2":0,"month2":0,"day3":0,"month3":0,"day4":0,"month4":0,"day5":0,"month5":0,"d1":0,"w1":0,"d2":0,"w2":0,"d3":0,"w3":0,"d4":0,"w4":0,"d5":0,"w5":0,"suspend":false,"random":false,"repeat":true,"atstart":false,"x":144.66664505004883,"y":611.000020980835,"wires":[["3ec73a0b.fbe2b6"],[],[]]},{"id":"8bd48998.e8c2a8","type":"change","z":"864e4169.fd187","name":"Set Day Mode","rules":[{"t":"set","p":"dayMode","pt":"global","to":"payload","tot":"msg"}],"action":"","property":"","from":"","to":"","reg":false,"x":1090,"y":511,"wires":[[]]},{"id":"ec198d17.24b15","type":"change","z":"864e4169.fd187","name":"Sun Mode","rules":[{"t":"set","p":"sunMode","pt":"global","to":"payload","tot":"msg"}],"action":"","property":"","from":"","to":"","reg":false,"x":1079,"y":552,"wires":[[]]}]

I then use either the link node you’ll see in the flow to trigger events at change, or Switch nodes like below to check status.

Time of Day Check:

[{"id":"c23b1ee9.60e33","type":"switch","z":"864e4169.fd187","name":"TOD Check","property":"timeOfDay","propertyType":"msg","rules":[{"t":"eq","v":"OVERNIGHT","vt":"str"},{"t":"eq","v":"PREDAWN","vt":"str"},{"t":"eq","v":"EARLYMORNING","vt":"str"},{"t":"eq","v":"MORNING","vt":"str"},{"t":"eq","v":"DAY","vt":"str"},{"t":"eq","v":"AFTERNOON","vt":"str"},{"t":"eq","v":"EARLYEVENING","vt":"str"},{"t":"eq","v":"EVENING","vt":"str"},{"t":"eq","v":"NIGHT","vt":"str"}],"checkall":"false","outputs":9,"x":1630,"y":460,"wires":[[],[],[],[],[],[],[],[],[]]}]

Day Mode Check:

[{"id":"25f3877d.807228","type":"switch","z":"864e4169.fd187","name":"Day Mode Check","property":"dayMode","propertyType":"global","rules":[{"t":"eq","v":"DAY","vt":"str"},{"t":"eq","v":"NIGHT","vt":"str"}],"checkall":"true","outputs":2,"x":1419.2500228881836,"y":559.7500076293945,"wires":[[],[]]}]

[dakipro (dalibor)]

Thank you, I will look into it soon

[rgerrans]

Updated the tutorial to add a reference to a nodes I just learned about, norelite, which look very promising for making home automation flows easier:

I also just found another set of contributed nodes to help with home automation, norelite - https://flows.nodered.org/node/norelite I will start experimenting with them and likely update this tutorial to incorporate their functionality in place of some of my workarounds (like stored variables).

[ThomDietrich]

@rgerrans I’m in the process of adding your tutorial to the list of selected tutorials here: http://docs.openhab.org/tutorials

How do you feel about renaming the thread to state something other than “Replacement”, I personally feel its to harsh and both systems can be used in parallel, nothing needs to be replaced. How about “Alternative”? While you are at it you could remove the redundant “Tutorial”.

[rgerrans]

@ThomDietrich

How do you feel about renaming the thread

No problem at all.

[ThomDietrich]

Thanks!

[dakipro (dalibor)]

What would you guys suggest for notification system, node-red as alternative or fully internally in openhab?
I am thinking about something like “if time>23 and priority<critical, then send info to mobile1 and mobile2, and tablet1 and tv1”, and then complicate it from there, like if people are home then announce on voice, if people are sleeping then just send email, if this when then that…

It could get a bit complex if one wants it to, that is why I am considering node-red to handle all the logic as well, maybe let the openhab do the actual communication based on node-red rules to avoid redundant accounts etc. donno
Tips?

[rgerrans]

@dakipro

What would you guys suggest for notification system

I’m overdue to add my notification system to the tutorial. I use Node-Red for the logic and email-based notifications, and OpenHAB for other notifications (via broadcast to app and voice to audio sink). For the OH notifications, I do it by defining notification string variable items in OH, populating them in Node-RED and then using OH rules to trigger the notifications when the variables are updated.

Items:

String  vNotification
String vSpeech

OH Rules:

rule "Send Notification"
when
	Item vNotification received command
then
	sendBroadcastNotification(vNotification.state.toString)
end

rule "Send Speech"
when
	Item vSpeech received update
then
    say(vSpeech.state.toString)
end

I’ll try to update my tutorial with all the details this week.

[rgerrans]

Updated Finally carved out some time to add a Notifications section to the main flow and comment on how I integrated with MQTT:

MQTT

I have fully migrated my deployment over to MQTT using the built in MQTT nodes (MQTT Archives - Node RED Programming Guide) You just need to replace any input / ouput nodes in the below example with MQTT nodes. The one item of note is you can’t (or at least I haven’t figured out how to) request a status from the MQTT broker like you can in the OpenHAB nodes. Instead you have to store any state information in a Node-RED flow or global variable like I defined below.

Notifications

While Node-RED has some addon Nodes to help support different types of notifications, I wanted to still be able to leverage some of the built in functionality of OpenHAB as well. This required setting up necessary OpenHAB items and rules to interfact into OpenHAB’s functionality.

Broadcast Notifications
Through the OpenHAB Cloud Connector http://docs.openhab.org/addons/io/openhabcloud/readme.html you are able to use the mobile apps to both access your system and receive broadcast notifications http://www.myopenhab.org/. To integrate this into Node-RED requires an item to carry the notification information and a rule to trigger the notification.

Item Definition:

String  vNotification  "Notification [%s]"`

Notifications.rules:

rule "Send Notification"
when
	Item vNotification received update
then
	sendBroadcastNotification(vNotification.state.toString)
end

And finally a Node-RED flow to send the notification. Here I used a change node to create my text message:

You can also use the template node to include other payloads or topics into your notification message:

If you want to add a time stamp to your message I was able to put together the following to create a plain language time stamp (i.e. 3:32 pm)

For cut-and-paste purposes:

msg.payload =  msg.payload + new Date().toLocaleTimeString('en-US',{timeZoneName: 'short'});
return msg;

Audio & Voice
OpenHAB has the ability to play audio files and convert text-to-speech: http://docs.openhab.org/configuration/multimedia.html. To take advantage of this integration we follow a similar approach as we did for the Broadcast Notifications above using a combination of a custom item and a rule combined with a Node-RED flow.

First to trigger a text-to-voice (assuming you have already setup everything in OpenHAB as per above).

Item Definition:

String vSpeech

Speech.rules:

rule “Send Speech”
when
Item vSpeech received update
then
say(vSpeech.state.toString)
end

And finally a NodeRed flow to tie it together.

I went a step further with mine to control the volume levels during and after sending speech (turning it up while the speech is broadcast and turning it back down). So I created a sub-flow (https://github.com/node-red/node-red/wiki/Design:-subflows

Similarly for sending an Audio file saved to your conf/sounds directory:

Item Definition:

String vSound

Sound.rules:

rule "Send Sound"
when
	Item vSound received update
then
    playSound(vSound.state.toString)
end

And Node-RED flow:

Email
For email you can choose to use the SendMail binding http://docs.openhab.org/addons/actions/mail/readme.html or alternatively you can do it directly from Node-RED using the email node https://flows.nodered.org/node/node-red-node-email. The one trick I did apply here is I didn’t want to configure each node instance with my smtp server information and I wanted the ability to turn on and off the ability to send email (so I didn’t spam my wife when I was testing) so instead created an email subflow and a control flow.

Email Subflow:

Control Flow:

[dakipro (dalibor)]

Thank you for the notifications flow, I like the usage of sub-flows to make things more reusable. I am thinking on extending it to have different priority levels sent with the message and then in the subflow have the logic that will determine what will be sent, where and when. (some messages I want to see immediately on the phone, some maybe once a day on email, some should be announced etc).

You said that “I have fully migrated my deployment over to MQTT using the built in MQTT nodes” - is this just to be independent of specific binding and have it all via “pure” mqtt, or do you have some other motives as well?

[rgerrans]

@dakipro

I am thinking on extending it to have different priority levels sent with the message

You can add your own subtopic to the payload to make that easy enough to do msg.payload.priority

@dakipro

is this just to be independent of specific binding and have it all via “pure” mqtt, or do you have some other motives as well?

Part of it is to channel my inner-geek just to do it. It is more the idea of moving to a tiered approach with mqtt being the central bus. When I started I suspected that using an mqtt broker might be likely a fraction faster and less load then monitoring a REST API like the openhab nodes do, plus I was looking into migrating to ZWay (didn’t support locks very well) or OpenZWave (doesn’t work with my Cooper dimmers) so wanted a more flexible approach.

[rswennen (Rohnny Swennen)]

@rgerrans thanks a lot for this tutorial, installed node red yesterday and I totally get it that this is the type of tools OH is missing.

But this is more than just a GUI to the OH rules, it’s a complete new rules engine, so you process everything outside of OH. You indicate you moved all MQTT away from OH to node red. But node red has nodes for a lot of other interfaces as well, like serial, global cache.

What is in your view the setup to go for, migrate other bindings to node red as well when there is a good node available or you think MQTT will be all ?
I can imagine when moving other bindings to node red as well but then what role does OH play ? Just an inventory of items? Just curious as, as excited as I am to start using node red as rule engine, I’m also concerned that in the end I’ll end up with a patchwork of systems that’s going to break every time some component upgrades (it’s already a challenge to keep OH operational and stable with every upgrade).

[rgerrans]

Adding Node-RED definitely increases the overall complexity, but also increases the overall flexibility.

When I look at OH I think of it as three layers: the bindings (the interface layer); the rules engine (the application layer); and the GUI (the presentation layer).

By moving to MQTT to sit on top of the interface layer, I made it so I can isolate the OH bindings as interfaces and expand the interface layer through other programs. A specific example in my case is that I have an NX584 alarm system. The current OH binding didn’t quite meet my needs so I was able to use a 3rd party interface to map the communication to MQTT (I did it through Node-RED temporarily but will make some tweaks to do it direct to MQTT).

With Node-RED, I’ve pretty much replaced the application layer from OH and also using it as an additional interface layer by replacing a number of the bindings (I use a WeatherUnderground node to replace my WU binding, a timer node to replace Astro, and a harmony hub node to replace harmony binding) and then feed the outputs back into MQTT. I figure going direct through these nodes should improve performance (though I’m sure it’s a pretty minuscule improvement)

Now I’m looking at some MQTT GUI interface tools to potentially replace the OH SItemaps/App which will give me the ability to not have to map back into OH items that I control outside of it (like the alarm system, harmony, etc.) and give me more flexibility:

Need for a cross platform, customizable ui

I was in the same situation as TS some time ago, when I started. But then I found, that there are many nice products on the market, which you just need to find. So if you need cross-platform customizable UI without any programming I know at least two options. They both provide responsive feedback due to MQTT nature(no REST stuff). All you need is to set up MQTT event bus binding in OpenHAB and … CommandFusion iViewer - for this you will need MQTT Plug-in, which I provided in it’s group. Aft…

If all you are looking for is a more visual rules interface, it sounds like this is an interesting alternative:

Flows Builder - a visual designer for the new rules engine

Hi, I’ve been playing with the “experimental” rules engine lately, to see if I could migrate most of my DSL rules to it (they are pretty simple). It’s working OK so far, and I think it has a lot of potential, especially with the JSR 223 scripting support, but the Paper UI interface to design them was IMHO not great - lots of clicks, dialog boxes, unneeded animations and so on. So I went ahead and forked HABPanel to make my own IDE … it’s still good old AngularJS 1.x, not the fancy new …

[Artyom_Syomushkin]

@rgerrans

and also using it as an additional interface layer by replacing a number of the bindings (I use a WeatherUnderground node to replace my WU binding

Be careful of WU node in NodeRed - I was pretty happy initially when moved from Yahoo Weather binding to WU Node-Red node. But after some time it started to crash my Node-Red runtime, and I got really dissapointed. So I returned to OH weather binding. That’s why I keep staying with original concept - Openhab for bindings and Node-Red only for rules.

[rgerrans]

@Artyom_Syomushkin

But after some time it started to crash my Node-Red runtime, and I got really dissapointed

I had an issue of a runaway WU process. I reset my api key and no issues since.

[Artyom_Syomushkin]

BTW I started using Node-Red for rules at the moment when there were no other alternatives. But now I’m seriously evaluating Codesys with MQTT library. This is a serious “industrial” software, targeting automation applications. At some point it will replace Node-Red in my home.

[rgerrans]

Looks like overkill for what I need to do but will be interested in an update once you deploy it just to see what the overhead / reliability looks like.

Thanks