I just found this out and even though it has nothing todo with OpenHAB itself I think it might be useful for some as people use the MAX! system.
They stopped the development of the MAX! system and the cloud support will end 07.2023. I assume also software support will end.
Therefore there is a special promotion until end of the year where you can exchange your MAX! devices with Homematic IP devices. You get 50% discount on the equivalent Homematic IP devices.
I hope this post does not break any forums rules, I am not affiliated with those companies and I do not get anything from posting this here, just thought it would be interesting for some. I use the MAX! system myself.
That’s a fair offer IMHO, but still another example of bad company policy. MAX! were a little more than half the price of HomeMatic, you could get a window sensor for 20€. Got plenty of those.
They probably decided to shut it down when they figured out people went buying that instead
Existing devices should continue to work so why pay for an upgrade that gets you - nothing ?
I’d rather use the money to buy some spare parts.
Just make sure you get rid of the crappy MAX! cube. Flash it into a CUN and use homegear.
Can the current MAX! thermostats work with the homematic gateway? (or do I need to replace indeed all of the thermostats)
Do the homematic thermostats report the actual temperature? (unlike their MAX! counterparts)
I’m wondering if the offer is interesting for me, or I better just keep using the MAX! system and just replace the thermostats once they break.(don’t use any of the cloud features anyway… I have OH for that)
Yes. But hey, you have openHAB so you wouldn’t want to run that crappy HomeMatic CCU, do you ?
openHABian contains homegear which is effectively a virtual gateway (they open sourced the CCU code). All you need is a physical gateway. You can flash the cube and turn it into a “CUN” or connect a “CUL” (an USB stick, effectively) to your openHAB/homegear server.
You have a good point…
But… I have 2 cubes, one used mainly for the MAX! binding development and I have a thermostat with broken display (it is still functional, but 90% of the digits are unreadable)
So I am considering to at least replace one cube for free… possibly sell the new one. And would like the replacement thermostat
The other cube I can indeed flash to cul/cun or whatever it is called.
In the early days I did once flash an arduino +CC1100 with it, but at that time the cul/cun software was tricky I remember.
I had bought a readily made CC1100 years ago even before I started with OH. Recently rediscovered that and decided to move from the cube based binding over there and have not had any problems since. It worked out to flash-upgrade it.
I installed homegear with APT (I did not know I could do it with openhabian) and connected all devices yesterday evening. The process was very fast and without any issues. The OH homematic binding was able to find all devices and now I am playing around with homegear. HG also has a nice graphical UI for setting the heating schedules and can also direct link e.g. window sensors and thermostats like in MAX.
Main reason why I did it was because yesterday I tried to move a device in the MAX Software to another room and it did not work and the only solution was a factory reset as usual. That was the final nail in the coffin.
I may exchange the other cube for a Homematic IP LAN Gateway and one thermostat just to play around with it.
I also had two and that was my plan, too. But on trying to flash my backup cube it turned out it was broken so my redundancy was gone anyway
So I took the CUL I found (an USB stick, that is) and keep the other (ex-active) cube as a “CUN” backup.
