Openhab 2 and mios binding

I am struggling with mios 1.9 binding in openhab 2 -

Am i still suppose to use MiOS Binding Tools and Utilities - If yes then how am i suppose to use the items file along with the paper ui which already have items created by for example hue binding automatically.

is there is updated documentation for 1.9 mios binding or when is 2.0 planned so that i dont have to create things (from mios) manually.

Others can confirm but how I understand it is .item files and items auto discovered by Paper UI and put in a database coexist in parallel with each other. PaperUI does not work with .item files.

So if you use both, in your sitemap file you’d actually be referencing items from both sources. The sitemap file would then be used on another UI (Basic, Classic, ect.) and not PaperUI.

I’m migrating from OH1 to OH2 and will run into the same thing. Since time was of the essence, I quickly did the things on the ZStick via autodiscovery to get things up and running but will be transferring them slowly and working with only .item files. My remaining items on Vera will have to be item files so I’d rather they just be working the same. Make sure you turn off the channel linking option in the System Configuration section of Paper UI.

Really, while OH2 may be “stable” to me it feels like a system that is straddling two worlds. Every recommendation on this forum seems to be to stay with text base files but to the new user auto discovery looks to be the official route.

ah thanks for the explanation, i start to get the hang of it … you are right auto discovery worked fantastic for “hue” i wish the same would work for Vera … so i start everything now in text file to have more control till the time binding mature further to be all ver 2.0 and above.

since your setup is more like mine i would like to stay in touch in this journey of getting openhab and Vera work together with you… thanks for support and hints.

Autodiscovery is indeed an excellent improvement and I don’t think anyone has recommended against using Autodiscovery. The advice is more to avoid using autocreated Items or creating Items in PaperUI. Instead use .items files and link those manually created Items to the Channels of the autodiscovered Things.

Also, note that there is nothing that one can do in PaperUI that cannot also be done in the Karaf console. So even if one were to remove PaperUI, autodiscovery would still be there.

1.9 bindings work exactly the same way in OH 2 as they did in OH 1 with the one exception that openhab.cfg has been split into separate files, one per binding. So all the documentation on the wiki should still apply.

I guess I could have phrased that better. Autodiscovery itself is useful for generating the naming structure of the channel to link in the .item file. But it’s like telling users “Use one part of Paper UI but ignore the rest.” If PaperUI was created by ESF and causes such issues/confusion I think it should be examined if it should be included by default.

It also useful for binding discovery and installation. I wouldn’t want to do away with it unless or until a viable alternative is chosen (habmin?) Or created.

MiOS binding, as a 1.x binding will provide neither auto discovery nor channels. Just use items and sitemaps like in openHAB 1.x.

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I cannot find hue.cfg anywhere - however i have 5 things in the PaperUI related to Hue and working well too. Now i dont have a means to use these things in the custom sitemap for my iphone app as these things (auto discovered) are not part of any .items file.

I am surely missing the basics here :frowning:

Click on the Thing in PaperUI. There will be one or more Channels. Each Channel has an ID string. Put that Channel ID inbetween the { } of your Item where you used to put the hue=“blah blah blah” for OH 1.

For example, here is the Thing page for one of my zwave devices:

I have the Switch Channel bound to an Item as follows:

Switch S_L_Porch "Front Porch"
        <light> (gLights, gEveningLightsON, gEveningLightsOFF)
        { channel="zwave:device:528f7aca:node6:switch_binary" }

Fantastic … thank you so much