I am using openhab running on a Windows 7 desktop to control my home automation devices. I have a few simple rules, timers, etc. I am now looking into controlling my devices from outside the home and I have some basic questions:
is my understanding of the possibilities for controlling from an iPhone correct?
-I can interact with my devices in 3 ways. I can use an iPhone app that enables me to display an openhab GUI on my phone.
-I can use an iPhone app that sets up a correspondence between homekit and openhab items
-I can use homekit to directly access the smart devices in my house (bypassing openhab)
what are the major advantages/disadvantages of using the 3 different techniques listed above?
is it possible to interact with openhab through a cloud-based website? (That is, without using anything on my phone except a web browser?)
As Vincent suggests, myopenhab.org which lets you access your OH using the iPhone app when not on your home network. You can also access the web UIs like PaperUI or HABPanel through myopenhab.org.
Set up a VPN server like openVPN and connect your iPhone to this VPN network when not on your LAN
Expose your OH to the Internet through a port forward using a reverse proxy to implement certs and authentication.
I don’t know how Homekit integration works but it doesn’t seem to me like it should require a separate app on the phone to allow it to control OH.
I don’t know, myopenhab.org is the most common and IMHO superior solution.
The problem with the iphone app is that it is rather incomplete and buggy. The advantage of using a reverse proxy is you can have client side authentication and so use mobile safari securely, rather than the app. But very possible there’s an easier way of achieving this which I have missed!
I set up myopenhab.com;
It works great so far and installation could not have been easier.
A couple of additional questions, just for my information:
why did I NOT have to open a port on my router for this to work?
why is the uuid generated by the openhab cloud add-on different from the uuid of the computer on which my openhab program is running?
Thanks again,
Joe
Because the cloud Connector binding initiated the connection to the myopenha.org server. You only need to open a port for computers to initiate connectiond to your computers.
The difference is which side is initiating the connection.
Because the uuid has nothing to do with your computer. It represents that installation of OH. One could, if they desired, have more than one OH running on the same computer at the same time. And what is it that you are referring to add the uuid of your computer? Your computer has lots of IDs like IP addresses and MAC addresses and be Windows license numbers and such but there is really no such thing as a uuid for a computer.
