Rachio Smart Sprinkler Controller

markus7017 · October 10, 2018, 3:17pm

@KidSquid Did you have any furthercommunication with Franz?

KidSquid · October 10, 2018, 3:34pm

I have not…I will be back in town later this week and should be able to test and see what the binding returns.

markus7017 · November 10, 2018, 8:21pm

any update?

vstrulev · February 18, 2019, 1:28pm

Thank you very much for putting lots of time and effort into this. I’m new to openHAB, but getting comfortable. I’m willing to buy Rachio 3 and test it, if you still need testers. Thank you for your time and good luck with the project. Just let me know if I may be helpful for you.

markus7017 · February 18, 2019, 6:45pm

Hi Vladimir, welcome. Just try to install the binding. Checkout the README - it provides additional information, esp. if you like to have a secure event driven setup.

KidSquid · February 27, 2019, 4:21pm

happened to run across this while doing some research…

Looks like the tech platform running the Rachio back-end is from a company called PubNub.

Looks like they also power Insteon, WiNK, and a few other IOT platforms.

kovacsi2899 · May 1, 2019, 4:44am

Thank you very mutch for the binding! I have just installed Rachio 3 with flow meter and rain sensor. I see all zones, including deactivated ones. It can start and stop watering. What I miss how to use config files for the things (zones). I created it for the bridge but I had to use PaperUI for the zones. I could not connect them through the .things file. I do not see in the inbox any of the activated sensosrs. I don’t know that I should see them just this is the status. I use the version fo 14th of May 18.

markus7017 · May 1, 2019, 1:44pm

hmm, I never got the idea to define the zones in a .thing file, because it’s lots of information to setup. Anyways a starting point might be the json db or link into the thing definition:

github.com

markus7017/org.openhab.binding.rachio/blob/beta1/ESH-INF/thing/thing-types.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<thing:thing-descriptions bindingId="rachio" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:thing="http://eclipse.org/smarthome/schemas/thing-description/v1.0.0" xsi:schemaLocation="http://eclipse.org/smarthome/schemas/thing-description/v1.0.0 http://eclipse.org/smarthome/schemas/thing-description-1.0.0.xsd">
    <bridge-type id="cloud">
        <label>Rachio Cloud Connector</label>
        <description>Rachio Sprinkler Controller.</description>

        <properties>
            <property name="vendor">Rachio</property>
        </properties>
        
         <config-description>
            <parameter name="apikey" type="text">
                <label>Rachio apikey</label>
                <description>Visit Rachio Cloud Portal to create an apikey</description>
                <required>false</required>
            </parameter>
            <parameter name="pollingInterval" type="integer" min="30" step="30">
                <label>Polling/Refresh Interval</label>
                <description>Seconds between fetching values from the cloud service</description>
                <required>false</required>

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If you configured the bridge the binding should auto-discover the zones. Once you have it running I kindly request to post your thing definitions so I could add them to the README.

If you are interested to receive events you need to setup a reverse proxy. Security is important if you need to open up your openHAB to the internet For this the binding implements several security featuresto allow restricted access only (e.g. filter originating IP to AWS address ranges, generate a token to authenticate callbacks etc.).

In addition you should setup a reverse proxy (which could also protect other applications working in a similar way). The README.md describes how to do this with ngix or Apache - a step by step, which should be complete with in 15min. However, not all events are captured due to a lack of api documentation (at least at that time I implemented it). The binding integrates an additional security layer

If currently did not build in the Flow Meter support, because this device was not available when I implemented the binding. I just checked the API doc and couldn’t find some type of alarm.
@KidSquid: Did you git any updates from Rachio?

If you still have problems you should enable DEBUG

open openHAB console
enter “log:set DEBUG org.openhab.binding.rachio”
end send me the log.

Even if it looks that the binding is outdated I’m still available for changes. Due to the fact that it’s stable there is no need to work on it. However, I plan some refactoring to prepare a contribution to the openHAB distribution, but this will take time.

kovacsi2899 · May 2, 2019, 6:30am

Thanks for the quick reply. .things file helps when I upgrade or change something. I do not reconfigure from scratch. I try to put it together and if I’m success than I share. Thanks for the info! I do not need the sensor data personally and the binding is perfect for me in the current condition. I know that Openhab 3 development is running in the background. So I would focus to keep the compatibility with the new version in the future. There are some important bindings for me and it is one of them. Thanks for the update!

markus7017 · May 2, 2019, 7:01am

Hi, why does a PaperUI setup messes up any update? You don’t need to start from scratch, PaperUI configs are backward compatible. An for safety you could run the openhab-cli backup and copy the file to a network share - all good

kovacsi2899 · May 2, 2019, 11:27am

Hello, No it does not mess it up. I use win10 mini server. Back up or an update is 2 minutes for me. But it happened that I had to reinstall everything from scratch due to zwave binding upgrade. I think it was between 2.3 and 2.4 or something somewhen last year. That was the point that I had decided that I go for config file structure as much as possible. Another advantage is when you modify something it is much faster in a text editor than click and change device by device. So no problem with PaperUI, just text files are more flexible and easier. Anyway I expect a complete reinstall for Openhab3 as well. Probably it wouldn’t be a requirement but an advantage.

rlkoshak · May 2, 2019, 2:41pm

You should be aware that .things files et al may not be supported in their current syntax for OH 3. The JSONDB in it’s current format will be supported though. So moving to .things files may make a transition to OH 3 more work, not less. Of course OH 3 is merely a concept at this point. The nature of the changes that get made are TBD, but this is one of the changes under discussion.

kovacsi2899 · May 2, 2019, 4:56pm

Thanks for the hint! I’ve just started to read threads about OH3 development to put myself into the picture. I personnaly prefer text files as I have programming knowledge. Format does not matter for me. If JSONDB will be the one than I will use it.

rlkoshak · May 2, 2019, 5:50pm

I believe there will be a text based format that is not JSONDB. But it likely will use a radically different syntax. YAML I believe is the top contender.

kovacsi2899 · May 2, 2019, 6:04pm

Interesting. Home Assistant uses this format as well as far as I know,

kovacsi2899 · May 4, 2019, 3:10pm

Hello,

Finally I’m done. It works now from text files. Here is the thing file:

I can share the item file as well, if necessary. Plus I created rules for turning on/off zones with Zwave Fibaro Keyfob. I had Orbit controller with Remote switch and this Keyfob solution was me a must. Thanks for the binding again!

markus7017 · May 4, 2019, 9:27pm

congrat. yep, if you post the thing definition and maybe a sitemap I‘ll include it in the README

heyandy · June 9, 2019, 10:21pm

I just got got a Rachio Version 3 and have set it up and can control it through their app. Now my next step is to setup the unit in Openhab. I go to the AddOns, see the Rachio Sprinkler Controller Binding. I click on Install and immediately get an error that it can not be installed.
I don’t see anything in openhab.log, but I see this line in events.log:
2019-06-09 18:11:48.173 [thome.event.ExtensionEvent] - market:binding-4085090: Bundle cannot be installed: Error occurred installing a bundle.

Any thoughts or next steps?

markus7017 · June 10, 2019, 6:34am

Hi @heyandy, welcome to this forum.

Where did you get the binding? I’m not sure if the market place is still working properly with OH, because the core team is working on kicking out ESH.
Which OH version are you running?

This is the latest build:
https://github.com/markus7017/org.openhab.binding.rachio/blob/2.5.0pre1/target/org.openhab.binding.rachio-2.3.0-SNAPSHOT.jar

Please let me know if that works.

heyandy · June 11, 2019, 1:54am

The binding just shows because I have the market add-on installed. I have downloaded the jar file you provided and after seeing how to put the initial things file in with my apices, it appears all is working. Thank you for your help and work!