On my existing setup I send location data to the home automation via HTTP requests. I’ve been trawling the forum trying to understand how to do this on OH, and my conclusion is that it used to be possible using MyOpenHab, but that this option (exposure of items) has been removed, meaning that a personal cloud server is needed to send in external data, following instructions such as these:
https://community.openhab.org/t/openhab-cloud-setup-guide-for-azure-and-ifttt/83208
Is this correct?
No. Exposing Items through the Cloud Server is and was only ever required for IFTTT integration. Literally nothing else requires it.
If you want to push command or updates to your OH Items through it’s rest API you can still do that all you want. In OH 3 you’ll probably have to deal with the authentication configuration but it’s still possible (but I’ve not done this myself yet so can’t comment on how to set up the authentication).
The openHAB Cloud Server proxies the full openHAB REST API. If it didn’t the sitemaps and such wouldn’t work either.
OK, excellent. That’s a relief. I’ll dig into the info on the REST API.