Protcol questions, MQTT, LoRa, Zigbee

[mmueller (Malte Müller)]

I feel a bit lost. Some items are added via zigbee, z-wave and some via mqtt, maybe wifi2mqtt or zigbee2mqtt.
Does that mean that I could connect whatever protocol to my mosquitto gateway, e.g. LoRa and add things via that gateway (e.g. MClimate’s Vicki thermostat)?

[hafniumzinc (T)]

@mmueller

Does that mean that I could connect whatever protocol to my mosquitto gateway, e.g. LoRa and add things via that gateway (e.g. MClimate’s Vicki thermostat)?

If you have something to interface between the other protocol and MQTT: yes.

That’s what zigbee2mqtt does: it is a two-way interface between a ZigBee controller and an MQTT broker.

[anon71759204]

The MQTT - Bindings | openHAB talks to your MQTT broker and the MQTT Things and Channels - Bindings | openHAB is the glue between MQTT messages and openHAB Things/Channels.

[mmueller (Malte Müller)]

So, I have some hardware that could talk to my MQTT server and might represent a thing, but OpenHAB must know the MQTT commands representing that thing.
A thing in OpenHAB is somewhat an abstract data type encapsulating the commands for that piece of hardware it represents? And OpenHAB connects the ADT to the communication channel?

[rlkoshak (Rich Koshak)]

@mmueller

A thing in OpenHAB is somewhat an abstract data type encapsulating the commands for that piece of hardware it represents? And OpenHAB connects the ADT to the communication channel?

It might be helpful to review/re-review the Concepts section of the OH docs. It attempts to explain the concepts core to OH: Things, Items, Rules, etc. and how they work together. The Getting Started Tutorial puts those concepts to practical use so you can see them applied in context.