Openhab2 - First steps, first questions

[Talcom (Stefan)]

Hello @all,

I’ve got some questions about openhab2.

I’m a newbie in this topic so I need some advice from you.

This is the actual status:

• successful installation of openhab2, based on raspbian jessie lite on pi3.
• successful samba server installation
• successful installation of zwave binding
• successful installation of zwave usb stick (stick is online)
• successful installation of fibaro smoke sensor (sensor is online)

But now I’m confused what to do next?

There is documentation about openhab 1.x, but this documentation does
not match the current release. And for the current release, there is
still documentation missing.

Here my questions:

• Did I need “eclipse smarthome designer” for the next steps?
• What are the next steps?
• What kind of configuration can be done inside of openhab2 and
  what kind of configuration have to be configured in files?

My actual goal is to get the status information about temperature,
battery, etc. from my senor and log it to build some dashboards based on
these information. Inside of openhab2 I can currently see two
things (zwave stick and smoke sensors) and serval items. But no status is
shown at the moment. The temperature is null, battery status is null etc.

In the future I will integrate more sensors, with rules, … but
step by step!

I would be happy about some hints or links to simple step by step
guidelines for my first steps in openhab2.

Thanks

[Slimmy (Oliver Frese)]

Hi

I´m new with OH too. But one Thing I have learned:
OH2 = Eclipse Smarthome designer.
The openhab designer only works with OH1

[mr_eskildsen (Martin Eskildsen)]

Hi,
Depending on what you want, you don’t need any editor. I have used OH since OH 1.4 and most of my mapping is done directly in the files. But sure the GUI’s would probaply be helpfull
In OH2 I beleive a lot of help is in the PAperUI, and for zwave don’t miss Habmin!
I have a lot of fibaro devices

As an example from my zwave.items, I have found a Fibaro Switch:

Switch switchLightSmallSpot	<light>  (PersistChange)		{channel="zwave:device:68ecb8f1:node6:switch_binary1",}

The interesting thing here is the channel statement, this is here the magic takes places:
zwave:device:68ecb8f1 - instructs OH that it is the Zwave Binding
node6 - is the node id of the ZWave item (Mine from the sample has Id 6)
switch_binary1 - is the channel that is mapped too

There is some differences between OH1 and OH2, but when you realise the difference between the syntax, it is pretty easy to search and replace.

In your case copy the line into your items file and and change nodeid and change the id so that it matches yours.
Hope that helps

[rlkoshak (Rich Koshak)]

@Talcom

There is documentation about openhab 1.x, but this documentation does
not match the current release.

Much if not most of the OH 1.x documentation is still valid for OH 2. In particular, Items, Sitemaps, Persistence, Rules, and configuration of all 1.9 version bindings are all the same as documented in the OH 1.x wiki.

@Talcom

• Did I need “eclipse smarthome designer” for the next steps?

Probably but it depends on what you really want to do. If all you are using is zwave and all you want is a dashboard (i.e. no automation) then you probably don’t need Desginer and can get by using PaperUI and Habmin, though Designer will make it easier to create Sitemap files for ClassicUI and BasicUI.

@Talcom

• What are the next steps?

Make sure the device is done being configured. In PaperUI or Habmin the smoke sensor should have make and model information associated with it. If it doesn’t and/or it says “unknown device” and there are not Channels listed you probably need to wake the smoke sensor up one or more times so the zwave binding can interrogate it to figure out what it is and complete configuration.

Once it works and you start getting values (- means the Item has not yet received any value) you will want to set up persistence so you can chart the data. If you want a lot of control over your charts I recommend:

InfluxDB+Grafana persistence and graphing

Store your openHAB item states in an InfluxDB time-series datastore and create highly customizable diagrams with Grafana. These diagrams can in return be included in your sitemap as images. [image] Following this guide, you will install InfluxDB and Grafana, make openHAB store data in an InfluxDB database, make Grafana fetch data from the InfluxDB database and draw diagrams. Finally you can include these diagrams in your openHAB sitemap. Table of Content Starting Point InfluxDB Installation…

Habpanel is a nice alternative that doesn’t require to you create text files to configure your dashboard. Habmin also lets you set up charts and graphs without editing text files.

@Talcom

• What kind of configuration can be done inside of openhab2 and
  what kind of configuration have to be configured in files?

The question doesn’t really make sense. openHAB 2 is like a platform. You can run add-ons on top of this platform to do things. One set of such add-ons are UIs and each UI has different capabilities. For example, you can do a whole lot using PaperUI including managing add-ons, working with Items and Things but you cannot create sitemaps, you cannot configure 1.9 version add-ons or create Items that work with 1.9 version bindings, and you cannot create rules. Habmin has more capabilities including the ability to set configuration parameters on zwave devices and create Rules, but it can’t create sitemaps and I don’t think it can do a whole lot with 1.9 version bindings. Habpanel, ClassicUI, and BasicUI are all intended to be the user interfaces one uses to control the home automation, not administer the deployment.

Ultimately, it is hard if not impossible to make a blanket statement about what you can do through the UIs verses the text files. Almost every deployment I’m aware of ends up using both.

And if you have any text files I recommend Designer.