OpenHab 3 and Alexa and Google Assistant

Setup, Configuration and Use Beginners
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  • Platform information: OpenHab 2.5 moving to Openhab 3
    • Hardware: Raspberry Pi 4 8gb
    • OS: OpenHabian 2.5.12
    • Java Runtime Environment: which java platform is used and what version
    • openHAB version:
  • Issue of the topic: please be detailed explaining your issue

I’ve been happily using OpenHabian (Paper UI) with no sitemap or things or items files. I’m looking to move to OpenHabian 3 and also want to do some Alexa or Google Assistant integration.

I’ve looked at the documentation, but I am not clear if I can do this without having to have item, thing or sitemap files.

Sorry if I’ve asked a dumb question, but I haven’t seen this posted. Thanks in advance, I’ve used this forum to get answers to lots of questions, without ever having to post :slight_smile:

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You do not need to have any file base configs. But you will want to upgrade your 2.5 and not just try to copy your current configs over to a newly installed 3.1 install.

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Thank you for the reply, that’s good news! For the upgrade, I’d planned on using another Pi 4 8gb, and starting from new. Once I have everything moved over to the new setup, I could then recycle the other Pi 4 to be a test server.

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You can do it all through the Main UI just make a item for the item you want to control add metadata

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If you haven’t already bought your pi just get the 4gig one then you can run 32bit or 64bit os. Memory will not be a problem if you are just running openHAB on 4gig

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5

Took a full backup of my Openhab 2.5 and then ran the upgrade as you suggested. Just completed the upgrade from Openhab 2.5 to 3.1.0. Worked perfect, added in Mosquitto and configured it with the same username:password as my old embedded broker. Then pointed my things to the new broker and everything is up and running. Logged into myOpenhab.org and all looks good. Next step will be to set up a test system and try Google Assistant.

Thanks again for your help and suggestions.

6

I recently upgraded to V3 after advice from this forum and I have basically a functioning system. Ok I should point out I have a very basic OH installation, it monitors a few IP addresses and I have one Wemos D1 Mini connected via Mosquitto and that is working fine.

I have google connected and it can turn my Wemos off and on, however Google is not polling OH for updates, so if a Switch status changes then Google does not know.

I also have Openhab skill loaded onto my Alexa and it is logged into the OH cloud service. However Alexa does not find any devices.

This is my latest effort
Switch Wemos_2 [ “Switchable” ] {
channel=“mqtt:topic:broker:Wemos_2:switch”,
autoupdate=“true”,
alexa=“Activity”,
ga=“Switch”
}

I have also used main ui to see if it can give me any clues. From what I have read the Alexa integration is being rewritten however I have no idea how that project is going.

Hopefully by the time I have my smart home built and integrated into OH any bugs with the Alexa and Google integration well be behind us.

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@denominator Thanks, got this working now by following your post, Main UI, edit each item and add some Google meta data. Works fine.

@Tara_Wood-Bradley there’s an option in the metadata page called auto update, not sure if this is related to the issue you have. I dont have that issue, Google updates its status when I change an item in the Main ui or from myopenhab.org.

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Thanks, I remember the auto update flag, it was something I had issues with before internally within Openhab so when I enabled it OH correctly showed my device status internally. The issue is if the device status changes on OH then it is not pushed back to Google.

As for Alexa, it does not see device no matter what I change. I have removed my test device and renamed it to Abigail and if I only controlled it from GA then it would be fine.

The one thing that is in my favor is OH is the next stage in my smart home evolution and I have my smart home stable with Tuya powered devices connected to GA and Alexa. Gradually I will move devices over to OH and that will give me time to sort out issues.

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Hi Tara

I don’t really know why your items are not turning up in Alexa, but for what it’s worth, this is the format that works for me:

Switch AlxTrgOH_GoodMorning "Alexa: Good morning" ["Switchable"] {alexa="Switchable"}

But it can take quite a while for new items to turn up in the smart home device list. All my Alexa items are just switches that trigger rules in openHab, so I’m not trying anything sophisticated.

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Your configuration makes sense and the strange thing is Google can see my device and interact with it, so that verifies the configuration is basically working. Here is my latest configuration which is worked except Alexa does not see anything. I removed the OH skill from Alexa and added it again just in case. I have my foot in both GA and Alexa camps and Alexa is now playing more of a role in our smart home after Google dropped the ball. Apologies to anyone who is a Google fan, I started on the Google smart home speaker and run them exclusive, we use Google to run our home business however I am not feeling the love from Google. So I am slowly migrating off GA to Alexa.

root@Veriton:/etc/openhab# cat /tmp/z
::::::::::::::
items/experimental.items
::::::::::::::

Switch Abigail [ “Switchable” ] {
channel=“mqtt:topic:broker:Abigail:switch”,
autoupdate=“true”,
alexa=“Switchable”,
ga=“Switch”
}

2021-11-28 13:40:40.956 [INFO ] [el.core.internal.ModelRepositoryImpl] - Loading model ‘experimental.items’
2021-11-28 14:19:03.757 [INFO ] [el.core.internal.ModelRepositoryImpl] - Loading model ‘experimental.items’
2021-11-28 14:19:04.873 [INFO ] [el.core.internal.ModelRepositoryImpl] - Loading model ‘experimental.items’
2021-11-28 14:40:16.311 [INFO ] [el.core.internal.ModelRepositoryImpl] - Loading model ‘experimental.items’
2021-11-28 14:40:17.648 [INFO ] [el.core.internal.ModelRepositoryImpl] - Loading model ‘experimental.items’

::::::::::::::
things/experimental.things
::::::::::::::

Bridge mqtt:broker:broker [ host=“192.168.1.200”, secure=false] {

Thing topic Abigail  "Abigail" {
   Channels:
       Type switch : switch "Abigail" [ stateTopic="wemosesp-483fda49e1b9in" , commandTopic="wemosesp-483fda49e1b9in", on="1", off="0"]
}

}
root@Veriton:/etc/openhab#

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I know that item configuration wasn’t working on OH2.5, but you’re on OH3 so it should be OK. Maybe you could try just creating an independent switch item like mine (without a thing), to remove any other variables from the equation? See if it can see that.

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Try adding this as another item

Switch Abigail_light "Abigail Light" { synonyms="Abigail", ga="Light" [ roomHint="Abigail" ], alexa="Switchable", channel="mqtt:topic:broker:Abigail:switch"}

Make sure when you save the log has no errors.

Say “Hey Google sync all my devices”

Try and control it through the Google Home APP

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Google has no problems recognizing my device, its working however only in one direction, however it is still doing a lot more than Alexa. GA voice commands are turning my thing off and on.

Now I am playing with a temperature chip on my arduino so I can get the local temperature so I will do some work to get the local temp into OH however that is a completely different topic.

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I am making progress with my smart home, have finally learnt to solder headers onto circuit boards and next step is to look at voltage leveling.

As for MQTT, I decided the best thing to do is set up a subdomain on one of our domains that points to the MQTT IP on my server because I may move the MQTT to another box when my openhab network matures. So instead of re-coding the IP address I can use update the DNS entry.

I have been digging over Alexa skill documentation which mentions adding voice tags however that is not correct and the skill was supposed to have been updated however we still have the old version in production.

One project I want to do is with a wemos d1 minii send it an mqtt messages from my server once a minute and if the wemos fails to detect that message 5 times in a row then it will hardware reset the server. a 5 minute downtime is acceptable in my situation however others may have tighter requirements.

The one thing that confuses me is why is the Alexa still so different to to GA code. GA just works without much effort.

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15

So I now have 50 items configured in Google Assistant. And I’ve successfully moved from 2.5 to 3,1. Thanks again for your help, this was my first post, and I’m gracious for the help I got :slight_smile:

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16

Good to see you are going well with your GA and migration to OH 3.1, I have had fun looking for real world examples of what OH can do, I so would have loved to have had OH 15 years ago.

I have mounted by first Openhab wemos d1 mini board on the cupboard next to me. Yes it is connected to Google and it is set up as a simple light. So this one of my test devices so I can play

with it. Oh how I remembered one of my university lecturers getting upset when we said we played with our IT projects. No sense of humor.

So I have taken delivery of a heap more components and are having fun improving my skills.

Without breaking Non Disclosure Agreements a lot of what we work on here impacts a many people. So my openhab arduino kit is my downtime and something to take my mind off the real world.

Eventually all of this will feed into our small home based business, so I want to add motors to projects, senses, all that crazy stuff, however I have to learn to walk first.

Just added a switch to my wemos which is pushing a status update back to OH via MQTT

Now have my head buried in binding documentation to get Alexa sorted, have a good night peeps.

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Last night I set up the binding so OH has access to all of the echo device things, I created a control page for my desktop and phone. Then added my wife as a normal user so she can get access to the system.

Eventually I will create my devices of my own to replace the generic off the show product however I have openhab doing 80 percent of what I want and in any IT project that is what we aim for. The remaining 20 percent is what takes the longest in any project.

So my advice to any user user is go out there and do it, I have read so many comments telling me not to do things. Do not solder circuit boards as that requires advanced knowledge. If you are going to learn to solder parts on boards buy cheap boards so when you break things and you will break things then it does not hurt as much.

Now as a professional Systems admin my advice is if you do not break something along the way then you are not trying hard enough. Do not be afraid of OH, what is the worse case, you delete your complete system and install from scratch.