OpenHAB multiple Instance | node Connection

Setup, Configuration and Use Beginners
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Hi All,
I am totally new to this thing.You can say its my first day. I have some quires that I was thinking if you all can guide me are they doable in openHAB and how can i do that .

Products that i will be using:
Orange PI devices over which my software will be installed with OpenHAB
enocean Devices

What I want to achieve:
Build a building energy management system. In which there will be multiple floor,multiple apartments with multiple rooms

Idea is to once OrangePi is plugged into electricity & online, the software is supposed to connect an EnOcean device with it. The software display the products that can be connected and auto configure them.

A learning phase, in which the actuators of the software are connected to the end device (e.g. a heater) for the very first time and where the software sets up a connection to the product that needs to be managed.

A running phase, in which all products are part of a user’s own dashboard separated into rooms, floors, types of products and status of each product

Use OpenHAB to configure and control enocean devices and send status to node application. All configuration and controls will be performed in Node and information will be passed to OpenHAB to execute them.

there will be 100 of orange Pi devices that will be communicating with each other as well as devices,sensor and sending and receiving information and performing action by openHAB.
Breakdown of requirement:

I want to be able to create rules for a few hundred rooms without chaos

I want to be able to copy whole building setups for identic buildings therefore I need to learn in the new devices ( same kind different id)

I want to be able to add gateways with the click of a button add new gateway
I want to be able to see what devices are learned in into which gateway
i want to be able to control rooms (light, heating , switches)
I want to be able to monitor the rooms -> temperature / electricity
I want to be able to monitor the buildings as a whole thing
I want to be able to select the gateway the devices should be learned in too(gateway is orangePi)

MY QUESTION:

Can multiple openHAB instance created on each orangePI communicate with each other, How they do that. And will there communication be two sided. First I looked into fhem, they have a module Fhem2Fhem but that communication is one way.

Is there any Api exposed to control devices connected with open HUB through node application.

is there any OpenHAB building module available that is specifically created for buildings not home.

Is all above requirements do able in openHAB.

1 Like
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A openHAB Cluster setup. I am looking forward for Updates on this Topic.

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I haven’t used it myself, but the MQTT Eventbus (see here) might be what you’re looking for in terms of connecting your openHAB instances.

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are we talking about a Hotel? or appartements? are you using this “as a service”, which can be subscribed or is it just installed in the rooms and each user has it’s own device and can configure everything on this device?

again: are the orangePis only to collect data, which will be processed centrallly or is it, that every room is a entity of its own?

I’m asking because openHAB doesn’t come with a user&right management, so every single installation if combined will see every other installation.

As suggested, one way would be to use the MQTT Eventbus, you have to Setup an MQTT-Broker (e.g. mosquitto), which handles the MQTT-communication. each openHab instance can be configured as to send and receive the items based on simple rules. That way, every item from every orangePI is available at every instance.
Second way would be to use the API of openHAB, which then can be configured more granular - but still: as openHAB doesn’t know users or rights, everybody can see every item which is within his instance.

So, if you could provide some more context for the use case, we could come up with a Suggestion on whether openHAB is the right software for your needs.

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Based on what I’ve seen on this forum, I don’t think EnOcean will work like that with OH. It will require specific configuration to get the devices recognized and configured for use with OH. The only EnOcean binding I can find is a 1.x version binding and those do not support automated discovery.

There is no learning phase in OH. For 2.x verison bindings they can automatically discover devices and automatically create Things. but you then have to link the Channels on those Things to Items.

As mentioned, OH has no ability to isolate parts of itself based on user. You can set up independent OH instances in each apartment.

And again, the dashboard is something that must be built. They are not automatically generated.

It depends on the nature of the rules but there are many techniques that can be used to generate reusable and more maintainable code. The JSR223 addon is another area you should seriously look into as it lets you write rules using Jython, JavaScript, or Groovy which will give you more opportunities to take advantage of those languages to create reasonable rules.

With EnOcean this will be a completely manual process.

Can’t be done with EnOcean. You have to edit text files.

Yes and the most common way is to use the MQTT Event Bus, as already mentioned. The communication is two way. The challenge for you will be that your “master” node will have to have duplicate Items for each of the “slave” nodes to be able to see and control the slaves. Furthermore, since the MQTT binding is not a 2.x version binding either (one is in work) you will have to set all of this up by hand in text files as well.

With the MQTT EventBus this can be done. There is also a REST API that can be called.

No. The “H” in openHAB stands for “Home”. There are some users who are using openHAB for commercial and industrial purposes but it was designed and built for the home market. I know of no openHAB installation as large as you are proposing.

As I mentioned above, not with EnOcean. And even if you did choose an alternative technology that does have a 2.x version binding with automated discovery of Things, I think OH is going to be more work for you than you would like.

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We are talking about a building which have apartments in it.
it will be installed in every apartment. User will have some default configuration in it. But he add its own as well. This apartment system can be controlled by n individual living in there.
And as a whole there will be user who will be monitoring whole building in which they can see apartments information as well .
Idea is to install one orangePi device per room that will be controlled centrally by one main orangePi device of apartments. and all apartments orangePi device will be controlled by one main Device.
and all the information will flow accordingly.

for example the orangePi in room with openHAB in it, will be used to control enocean devices/sensors connected to it and all information of this openHAB instance will be available to main apartment OrangePI device with openHAB on it.

This will have whole view of apartments and can perform actions accordingly.

All user management/site management/if-then rules/ scene creation will be done in node application.
with own customize front end.

Idea is to use openHAB to just communicate with end devices/sensor of enocean and control/view/remove/edit/add from node application by calling restAPI from node to perform action over OpenHAB instance.

What i am interested in knowing is that enocean devices have a button on it find me which send radio signal. Can openHAB auto configure these enocean devices and send us details which which devices are available

And who will all this openHAB communication will be managed. Can i do what i am thinking to do with openHAB .

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Hi Asif,

reading your requirements, I don’t think, you’ll be happy with openHAB. As explained, there’s no auto-detect and even auto-configure built into openHAB for EnOcean devices. Also you would have to find solutions for discrete openHAB-instances and a master instance controlling every other instances.
My bet would be either contact EnOcean directly on your issue, perhaps they do have some solution for building automation. openHAB is aimed for home use and therefore doesn’t come with a out-of-the-box solution for your approach, I’m afraid.

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As I said in my response the answer is no. The enocean binding is a 1.x version binding. All configuration must be done via text files. There is no automatic discovery available unless and until someone writes a 2.x version of the binding and adds support for that.

It is theoretically possible but it is going to be a lot more work for you than you will want to handle. You really need to be looking at more high-end commercial/industrial automation systems that are built to handle this sort of deployment.