I don’t think that such a wiki has to be filled and updated by the developers. I mean it would be nice if they contribute to the wiki sometimes, but it’s not necessary. The FHEM wiki works also that way. Every end user can create an account and contribute. The same way wikipedia works.
As a developer and end user I would like to contribute to such a database or wiki. For instance, I’m currently collecting information about motion sensors. I looked through different binding descriptions which anyway can be only used as starting point for further searches on the web. I also searched for user experience in the openHAB forum. But my feeling after investing a lot of time in just searching is:
- I’m still not feeling well informed, since I assume I found only a small portion of the supported motion sensors.
- I think there must be thousands of users that do exactly the same. They search and gather valuable information in a time consuming process and I’m pretty sure they would also like to share this information with others, because they know it’s a big help for others.
- Moreover, while searching for motion sensors I accidentally discovered two wiki pages that exposed to be one of the best sources for my task: the FHEM wiki and the Homegear wiki - wiki pages of two alternative open source home automation systems. When I saw this, I felt very disappointed regarding openHAB and I started to doubt that I made the right choice with openHAB just because it’s implemented in Java. But since I made already some adaptions to an openHAB binding, I will of course stick to it. Since I don’t like problems to be unsolved I decided to improve what I though is necessary to improve - the missing device database. That’s why I started this thread.
Yes and no. Yes, they will definitely know best which protocols, properties and functions will be supported by the binding. However, they will not exactly know if some devices are not working properly as long as they did not test them all in detail. That’s an information only an end user can contribute.
I anyway wanted to suggest to add some additional columns to the database. One of them is “Additional hardware required?” where hubs and so on could be mentioned. Anyway this database should be of course only a starting point to find appropriate devices. If you want to set the system up, of cause you have to look into the binding documentation. I would also suggest to just link this documentation from the device database instead of duplicating and storing it at two positions.
Exactly! This cannot be handled without a database anymore.
@tommycw10
Thank you very much for your experience. You mentioned a good example of how different system can be connected and do not have to be directly supported by openHAB. This makes it even more complicated for users to identify (indirectly) supported devices.
I don’t think that setting up such a database and collecting those devices will be easy. But I think it would be a HUGE help. It just needs to be collaborative, people have to be encouraged to contribute to it and then it will automatically fill over time.