Hello @ All !
Iam a beginner with OpenHab and would like to ask for help ordering my first hardware.
A Synology NAS DS214 is already in my hands, but I think I need to start over also a Pi.
The target will be to automate the Pool in the garden and visualize it on the Android Smartphone.
Feel welcome to help me finde the hardware now I need, to start my first experience with Open Hab !
THX !
I have a Synology DS213+, but started on Raspberry PI 2. Raspberry is very cheap, so worth investing small money for playing. I would not play with my NAS, as there are many things running over there, but in future… who knows - maybe I will move everything there.
I started with similar hardware to a Pi - an Odroid - but found that eventually all the various bindings I wanted to install were just a bit too much for it… startup times in particular were annoying slow. So I moved everything to an old Thinkpad, which works just fine.
Hi and thx for reply.
I also had the idea of starting on my old Synology DS109+ but cannot get Java to run.
Pi 2 B will be the next step, but until I havn’t it, the DS214+ will do the job.
What I do not know now is, how does the openHab communicate out of the DS to periphery.
And is the openHab able to do automation (like a SPS).
Regards
I don’t know what an SPS is, but you can setup openHAB rules to do pretty much anything (although the language is a bit obscure, and so when I get stuck I’ve often found myself resorting to using openHAB to call external scripts)
What do you mean by communicating to the periphery? .
Hi Dan
Sorry for my english. SPS = PLC (programming logical control) = swiching of 24VDC and so on… doint automation
My project now is to do an automation via open HAB and PI to run my pool and visualize over Web on my smartphone. I hope I could explain it well.
Periphery means to switch Relais to switch on/off 230VAC,400VAC, 24VDC… and get back infos from these electrical plants.
what about the cubieboard or the beaglebone? They have more gpio than rpi, and only cost slightly more.
Ah, I see.
I have one set of relays and sensors controlled by an RPi running a small webserver. This communicates to/from openHAB using curl.
Other relays are zwave devices.
All works very smoothly.
Morning !
Cubieboard, beaglebone… ? did not know about them
would they be better for my project?
Dan, would you be so friendly and tell me more about your SW&HW? (maybe via PN?)
THX
Odd. I run a C1+, with Debug logging enabled on 1000+ items, and it’s like a rocket. I’m using the 32MB eMMC module instead of an SDXC card, so perhaps that’s the difference.
The downsides I’ve found so far are:
- it runs a little hot, even with the new heatsink (it’s running inside my structured wiring closet)
- I had to use Upstart for process management, as the Oracle 8 JVM SEGV’s every few days, needing a restart.
But the upsides outweigh the downsides so far (onboard RTC, GigE, speed, low-cost etc), so it’s been a great little box.
Happy to start here in case it’s of interest to others:
Main caveat is I’m a relative Linux newbie and so have probably made lots of mistakes in how everything works. But it is now working…
OpenHAB is running on an old Thinkpad T60 - a fairly dated laptop even in 2006. I rescued it from a cupboard, replaced the hopeless original hard drive with a 2009-era 64GB SSD and installed Ubuntu 14.04. Runs a bit hot but hasn’t broken so far…
The rPi has a PiFace interface linked to the doorbell and front door, which runs a Python script that keeps a miniature web server running - so openHAB can open the front door by calling that web server. The Python script communicates with openHAB by triggering an openHAB switch item (and therefore a rule). The rPI is also running Motion to control a front door security camera.
openHAB is also controlling an assortment of zwave switches, a powermax intruder alarm (through the powermax binding) and heatmiser thermostats (using shell scripts).
Dan
That’s the one reason to start with Raspberry instead of DS. The newest OpenHAB Release (1.8 I guess) includes a lot of so called bindings - drivers for periphery. All these nicely works with Raspberry. But in case of DS you will have to install older version of Openhab (1.5 or something like this) which has much less communication capabilities. And with all these you will get no communicty support, as you will be using obsolete version.
Anyway DS communication capabilities will be much worse than Raspberry, simply because not everything is open. For example in many cases you have to plug in some wireless (not WiFi!) USB stick for Z-Wave or EnOcean. Those require some drivers and DS is not supporting all of them.
In my opinion the best way is to implement single communication interface, like MQTT on DS in addition to OpenHAB egine and use Raspberry or Arduino platforms to implement simple MQTT bridges to appropriate wireless interfaces. In this case you will have less trouble managing OpenHab and easy support for Bridges.
Hi
Iam not used to Linux and just a complete startup with Pi and openHAB.
My tests with the DS are now finished, the 1.7.1 does not create the secure and uuid files and my.openHab.org stays offline. So… it died before starting.
Actually the runtime is now on a Win7 32Bit Laptop until the PI is in the house and I solved running the PI 
Thx for all inputs!
Hi,
my openHAB runs actually on MacMini. Firstly I thought about putting it to Synology but due to my long experience with those devices and the way how they are updated. So I decided not to do this.
I’m not sure if I will use Raspi as openHAB Server directly but maybe more in the way as collector/bridge. And for presentation of data.
My target setup is a floor (3 floors) screen where I can check and control what’s going on. This will be done with Raspberries and small touch screen monitor.
Kind regards,
Stefan
Hi guy’s, seems like there’s a lot of development done the last year. At this moment I’m playing with OH2 on my (windows) laptop. Now it’s time to set everything up the way I want permanently. I also have two options. DS116 or Pi3 (running openelec /kodi). What would you advise this newbie to do?
Hello,
this thread already received many answers. For starters you can find general platform recommendations in the official documentation. I would highly recommend working with a Raspberry Pi (2 or 3). It is one of the more famous platforms over here. There is an article on it and linux installation instructions known to work.
Most importantly I want to point you towards openHABian, a custom-build Raspberry Pi system for openHAB 2 users not wanting to go through all recommended setup steps themselves. It’s definitely something that will sweeten your experience - full disclosure, I am the one behind it 
Hey Marijn,
I personally would actually use yet another Raspberry Pi for openHAB. Not necessarily because of performance concerns but more because of general modularity. Two dedicated small systems can individually used or modified without compromise or special incompatibilities.
That said, I do not have experiences with a Synology but a Raspberry Pi with openelec should be just fine. Just follow the linux installation article.
Hi Thom, thanks for your suggestion.
I just found out that openelec is a very build from scratch just to perform as a mediacenter.
That means apt-get for instance is not available.
Since I’m running two Pi’s as mediacenter (one in the livingroom and one in the bedroom) and they are exact clone’s I might follow your suggestion and get a third one running Openhabian.