I have no idea where to put my question best, so here it is in ‘Off Topic’.
My situation is as follows and I need your advice:
I have OH2.4 (Habian) running on a laptop with Debian. I have a Zwave-USB-stick, smart-meter (dsmr) on another USB-port, OTGW and Phillips Hue on ethernet.
Now I have a chance of getting (for free!) a few nice blinds that are controlled by Homatic IP. I work at a company that is going to sell these. This is for a test and I have to give feed back on the system for a year. The system is based on the Homatic IP Access Point. I already know that the access point is not compatible with openHAB.
BUT:
After the test is over, I can keep the blinds (and discard of the access point). I would like to start controlling the blinds with OH. So I can by a CCU2 or CCU3 but from what I understand, these are small computers with lots of possibilities that I am not going to use since I am going to controll every blind from OH. I don’t like the idea of having yet another piece of hardware that is consuming energy, building up heat and most of the time doing nothing.
Another way to go would be RaspberryMatic. But this is just another (small) computer running linux, while I already have my debian laptop running OH. RaspberryMatic can use one of these: hmip-rfusb. On the website EVL.de it is said that this usb-stick will work on linux. But I can not find any refference to a manual where this is explaned. Besides, the HmIP-binding states that it is compatible with RaspberryMatic specifically with the HM-MOD-RPI-PCB or RPI-RF-MOD RF modules.
So I wondered if there is a way that I would be able to use OH with the Homatic binding to control HmIP-controled blinds through my laptop that is already running Habian with just a USB-stick?
Thanx @ptweety, that looks as exactly what I need! It’s still in beta, do you know how good it is and do you have experience with it?
Does this mean I can use the Hm-binding in OH and for the gateway use the IP ‘127.0.0.1’?
According to the link, that gateway will work with the usb-stick. But will the OH-Hm-binding work with that gateway for HmIP?
See binding docs, there’s a number of supported bridges.
Don’t use it so can’t recommend but I know a couple of people to run homegear together with openHAB. It’s even available as an install option in openHABian.
I did read the binding doc, but the combination ‘Debian with USB-stick’ is not mentioned.
I have read about homegear, but I thought it was a concurrent home automation server. I must have misunderstood.
It’s really confusing, homatic/homaticIP, ccu2/3, hpmatic access point, homegear, occu, pffff.
Thanks for the tip, I’ll have a look.
If someone is using HmIP with openHAB, on the same linux computer, please let me know how you did that!
But first you’ll need an RF module that can talk to your HmIP devices. These RF modules are either build-in into the CCU2/CCU3/CCU3 kit (called Charly)/HmIP-AP or sold separately as HATs or USB stick (as you already found out)
Next you need to have a bridge. This is basically some sort of SBC running software that talks to your RF module and provides the API required by OH and it’s binding. Again, this is build-in into CCU2/CCU3/Charly (but not HmIP-AP).
If it comes to self-made bridges there are again several options available:
RaspberryMatic based on OCCU/buildroot which is compatible with multiple SBCs (e.g. raspberry, tinker board)
PIVCCU/PIVCCU3 based on OCCU/raspbian running inside an LXC on multiple SBCs
Debmatic based on OCCU but running on standard Debian (kernel>=4.9 I think). The author recommends to setup debmatic inside some VM
some more options like CCU-X86
If you have a spare SBC like a raspberry 2 or 3 you could install openHabian and PIVCCU3 using an HmIP-USB stick.
If you want to continue with you Debian laptop you may want to install Debmatic (in an VM). But read the docs carefully since Debmatic installs a whole set of services and will also run lighttpd as a web server to provide the OCCU web interface.
Wow, Matthias,
thank you for the clear explanation. That is a need overview!
Since using Linux on my laptop is already a big thing for me, starting virtual machines is probably way over my head. Looking at it this way, it is going to be over complicated to build a OH/Homatic combination in one box. It’s clearly not like Z-wave where the OH-binding can communicate directly with the Z-stick.
If I have to go for an extra box, I would go for the one with minimum energy consumption. Looking at CCU2, CCU3, PiMatic, I find that both CCU3 and PiMatic have the same hardware, and all three of them use 1.7W of energy! I now understand that I was making things too difficult for myself, they don’t really need a lot of power. I still would like to have less devices doing the same, but not if things get over complicated.
I understand CCU2 is getting old and not so fast, and CCU3 and RaspberryMatic are more or less the same (but official and non-official version).
Is it true that RaspberryMatic is just as good and stable as the CCU3 and receives faster updates? It’s also 50 euro’s cheaper but for me that’s not a big problem.
The amount of hardware that is compatible is probably the only difference that may help me decide.
I’m the author of debmatic an piVCCU and maybe I can clarify some things.
debmatic is still beta, but the main reason for this is the lack of documentation and I hope to end the beta phase within June.
You can install it on a bare metal debian based linux system or inside a fully virtualized VM, but it does not support docker and there are some issues when running it inside a lxc container.
I developed debmatic exactly with your use case in mind, so it should match it perfectly.
Hi @alexreinert, thank you very much for your reply. Sorry for not posting earlier.
I would like to try this. But since the openhab binding states that not all hardware solutions are supported, does it matter which hardware I use when I install debmatic? Or will debmatic behave in such a way that openhab thinks it’s the real CCU3 no matter what hardware I use with it?
debmatic will only expose the interfaces which are supported by the used hardware. I’ve tested debmatic together with openhab using the RPI-RF-MOD and the HM-MOD-RPI-PCB without any issue, for all other hardware solutions I can’t definitly say, how it will behave.
The homematic binding will find all devices exposed via the xml-rpc or bin-rpc interface. The device structure is being analyzed, the devices are not hardcoded.
For example, i use homegear as hardware layer, and my hue and kodi devices are also usable via the homematic binding.
Short: if the device is exposed, it will 99.9% work.
Hi Alex,
i’m planning to integrate HM into my Smarthome. ATM I’m running OH 2.5 in an LXC-Container on an Intel NUC (2 x Celeron, 8 GB).
I’m unsure whether to use piVCCU on a Pi oder DebMatic on the NUC, maybe you can give me some advice here:
I have a spare Raspi 4 (4 GB) i could use, especially since SSD-bootup is supported now
I fear my NUC will be quite at limit if I use a full-vm as I intend to add a VPN and NextCloud in two seperate LXC-Containers. How many RAM do you suggest vor the VM?
I have not yet bought any HM-hardware, so I’m open to any configuration regarding the bridge.
/Edit:
Does the older, smaller board support PiVCCU3 oder only PiVCCU? If running on a Raspi 4, which kombination of hard- and software would you recomment?
but for me that’s not a big problem.