I am venturing into Smart Home device manufacturing. I am all set to with hardware which is nothing but simple smart home switch with some specific form factor.
Now I would like to offer some Out of the Box server for my device. Out of the box server, where the device will connect for control and storing the information. User can manage single/many devices on this server. Basically I want OpenHAB server for all my devices.
User base I am targeting may or may not set his own local instance but to start with I want to offer some server when he can connect and configure his devices.
So my question is, can I host my own OpenHAB server where as a manufacturer, I have freedom to create as many users as needed. Each user can have his own workspace where he can have his own homes, in short his own OpenHAB instance.
I think that was supposed to be the purpose of Eclipse Smart Home.
OpenHAB was developed as an open source implementation of ESH.
I am not sure of the latest status of ESH but @Kai or somebody else from the foundation should be able to advise further.
I know Kai owns the OpenHAB name and guards it closely.
The short answer is. Not out-of-the box. openHAB doesn’t support such a use case. Not only because it has no user management.
The long answer is difficult to answer as the features you suggest are very wide ranging. Because running a centralized service where all users can connect a specific device to is something different than having a openHAB instance running. For a centralized service you’d be better of using some kind of open source (eclipse) or commercial (like azure IoT) IoT platform for such functionality. Having an openHAB instance on your devices is possible, but requires a lot more customization than simply having devices connect to some remote services. There is also an openHAB cloud, but that is an application for remote access to a local instance, not a remote instance. So it might not directly apply to your use case.
Legally you are allowed to ship openHAB on your devices or run it on a centralized server. However it’s a trademarked name. So all trademark restrictions apply regarding the use of the name openHAB.
Thank you all for your reply. I am no expert in Smart Home Software. But now I have to decide the direction of the software for my product. From the Solution Architect perspective I would like to have following features.
A customer buys a single piece of hardware. Hardware firmware should allow easy integration of the hardware into existing smart home platform. This can be done I guess using standard MQTT client or offering integration possibilities with known Smart Home Platforms like OpenHAB or Home Assistant.
But most of the customer I will be targeting are the people who will buy the smart home product first time. For them I should be able offer the Service where one or many of my products can be configured and controlled. Also there should be possibility of connecting other products from other manufacturers on the Cloud Service which I am going to offer. That is why I asked is OpenHAB cloud service for many users is possible or not. I have no intention of changing OpenHAB branding. It will still be OpenHAB but hosted by me.
I mentioned @Kai for future direction of that product because I am unsure of future development. He would know. Perhaps you should private message him for current status.
No not in the way you intend to use it. The service isn’t designed for such use case. You might be able to use it as a basis, but it will still require significant development resources to have a working product. There are other solutions that are better suited for such use case.
That is
You still might have to deal with the trademark. Also openHAB isn’t designed to use as a hosted service for lists of users, so there would be more (significant) development work needed to get it in such state.
Eclipse Smart Home is deprecated. However, the openHAB core project is the continued development of the Eclipse Smart Home project minus the devices support. Alle devices supported by Eclipse Smart Home have been migrated to openhab2-addons.
It’s possible to develop a product based on openHAB. The most logical with openHAB would be a hardware local server running openHAB. For the central service part there isn’t a lot openHAB offers out of the box and would require significant development work.
That trademark is owned specifically by @Kai and based on what he recently stated in another thread you would not be able to use the openHAB trademarked name.
I guess,What could be sufficient for me, is the MQTT Broker with basic automation and rules. Of course with multi user support.
Now I learnt that, OpenHAB cloud will only support limited devices, devices which has direct internet access or devices with bridge connected to internet.
OpenHAB is not designed as a cloud based solution. Samsung bought SmartThings which was an open sourced cloud based solution. I am not sure that it is purely open sourced wright now but that may gove you a start.
You are not likely going to find a prebuilt system that will permit you to resell while differentiating yourself in the marketplace. The business needs its own creativity and technical expertise for that.
