For those who are unsure if OpenHab is right for them let me describe my setup as I just moved away from Vera to OpenHab about 1 month ago.
VeraEdge: I still use this for my Door Locks since the current solution for OpenHab is about 90% complete (secure classes issue). I also use AutoVera since the communications between that and my phone is solid. I have the multiswitch plugin to act as a indication for certain doors/windows on my OpenHab setup for control of the door locks, ie don’t lock the door unless it is closed. I use the urls for turn the multiswitches on and off based on their status from OpenHab. The delay is only 100 msec. PLEG controls all the logic for the locks.
DSC Alarm system: I put this in because the zwave door sensors, especially for doors that are opened and shut quickly, did not always receive the shut command and the DSC system has never missed this. Plus to add a door sensor is only 20 dollars. Obviously there is a cost up front but the reliability and expandability makes it easy. The problem with DSC is their wireless motion sensors. There is a 4 second delay from trip to transmit which for me was unacceptable for home automation (HA). What I did was by a Resolution Product RE324HD which allows the use of any Honeywell sensor with the DSC system. It translates their frequency to the DSC’s 433mhz. Their 5800pir has no delay and over the past year have never had an issue. I strongly recommend anyone getting into home automation to start with a DSC system since it is much more reliable than zwave. If I had the ability I would wire all the door/windows sensors as well as motion sensors (wired ones don’t have this delay).
Tasker: iPhone users can skip this, tasker with AutoLocation is my geolocation solution. Exit a circle, turn off a virtual switch, I am away, enter a circle, turn on the switch, I am home. I use it for much more than that, voice control, inside the house room location monitoring and more, however I just want to stick with the basics for this.
OpenHab: I put the controller together for 100 dollars, consisting of a RPI2, case, AeonLabs Z-stick Gen5, and a UPS plug from PiManufacturing (check this out even for vera, its an outlet with battery backup for 30 dollars just make sure you buy the correct voltage for the vera). The learning curve is high especially if are just getting into HA, but after I figured it out, I was amazed on how easy it is to do everything. I am running OpenHab 1.71 with 1.8 bindings, along with the HA Bridge to have my Amazon Echo and Harmony Smart Hub bridged so my daughters can easily turn on the entertainment center.
Bindings: The major bindings I use are DSC, Imperihab, WOL, exec, HTTP, HarmonyHub, MIOS, Astro
DSC Binding-This is a very nice interface for my DSC system, it offers much more than the plugin with the Vera and the wiki makes it very easy to copy and paste into your items file and be up and running.
Imperihab-Although this isn’t being actively supported it does all I need for imperihome. I love imperihome for my wall mounted tablets and this binding allows users to add a simple line to their item to have it show up in Imperihab. PM me if you have specific questions, I just want people to know you don’t have to give up imperihome if you switch.
WOL-Works the same as the Vera plugin.
exec-I use this to send all sorts of commands such as a ping to see if something is connected.
HTTP-I use this binding to send UPNP commands to Vera as well as to EventGhost.
HamonyHub-Communicates with the harmony hub to know the status of it as well as control it. Can be setup to start/stop activities as well as send buttons presses. Very much the same as the vera plugin.
MIOS-This is a newer binding that allows full communication with the vera. Setup is a little more involved however like everything with OpenHab, once you figure it out once, expanding it is easy.
Astro-This calculates sunrise and sunset and also allows virtual switches to be made to fire events.
There are a plethora of other bindings available so I encourage everyone to check out the OpenHab wiki to see all it can do.
What I like about OpenHab: For those who don’t know anything about OpenHab let me give you a 30 sec run down of how it operates. Once installed (which can be on any hardware that runs java) the next step is to download the designer. Once the designer is opened, you open the configurations folder and start editing. The first thing to do is install the demo house and get familiar with the setup. Play with this as you can make changes here and see the effects. The first file to mess with is the OpenHab.cfg file. This is where you put all the baseline binding information. Ensure that if you are adding a binding that isn’t in the DemoHouse you have to put the binding.jar file in the addons folder in OpenHab. An example is the HarmonyHub binding, you go to the OpenHab webpage and download all the bindings then select the Harmony binding and action binding and put it into the addons folder. Next you will add a line for the ip address and username and password in the config file, the wiki explains it. Once you do that for all the bindings on to the items file. This is where you will define you various things. Switches (real or virtual), dimmers, strings, numbers… You can also make them into groups to be displayed on the sitemap. I won’t go into details because if you play with the DemoHouse you can see how the demo.items file interacts with the sitemap. Now you can start playing with the rules. The designer program will check your syntax which makes writing rules easier. I recommend you search for OpenHab rules and just pick and choose rules that suit your needs. Everything I was doing with PLEG on my vera I can do with OpenHab. I find it easier to do in OpenHab since for lighting it is mainly, if this then that, then start timer, once timer has ended check conditions and keep going or end. Once I was able to get one room working it only took me a couple of days to transfer all my rooms over. For more information on what I discussed just search for it, somebody has already done it.
More on what I like: Motion sensors can be defined as a switch-too many time with vera, my motions sensor would tripped, vera would restart luup, and vera would think my motion sensor was still tripped. Next time I walk into the room the lights wouldn’t turn on. I would then go to vera and see the motion sensor never un-tripped (PLEG Timestamps). With OpenHab, and the motion sensor as a switch, I have it reset the switch if the lights are turned off(either manually or automatically) so the next time you enter, trip signal is sent, and lights turn on.
-Performance: Motion sensor trips or door opens, action happens immediately. I admit when vera worked it happened just as fast, but the key phase is “when vera worked”, luup restarts where the cause and I don’t believe I was asking too much of my vera device to turn on a light if a motion sensor tripped or if I opened a door.
-Hardware independent: If you have been reading then you know I have a AeonLabs z-stick Gen5. I wanted to test something. I have my setup fully functional on a Raspberry Pi 2 so I downloaded OpenHab for windows and copied the necessary files from the RPI to windows, configured the z-stick to COM3 and started OpenHab. It worked just like it did on the RPI. Amazing, so when the RPI3 comes out, or if I want to build a windows HA machine I don’t have to start over (OpenHab uses about 5% of the RPI2’s CPU so not really needed). Also if the RPI dies or whatever, I have the files backed up to my dropbox and just reinstall OpenHab and back on the move. The z-stick has all the node data and the items file has all the zwave item devices bound to the nodes. Of course if the z-stick dies then I am in trouble however all that is needed is to get a new z-stick, add all the nodes then go into the items files and verify the node id number match and am back up. That is one thing about PLEG that I didn’t like. If a device was removed it deleted it upon opening, I couldn’t just pick the trigger and point it to the new device(small annoyance).
-Binding support: With exception of ImperiHab, in the last month updates for the binding have been coming out, adding new features if needed. Many of the plugins for vera seemed to break after a update and I was always hesitant to upgrade for fear of something not working and never being updated to work. With my limited knowledge on OpenHab I don’t believe this will be the case since everything is based on Java.
Final thoughts: I have about 80 zwave devices (not bragging I just really enjoy HA), minimotes, HEM, GE/Jasco switches, Aeonlabs multisensor 6, gen5 outlets, 1st gen multisensor 4s, Fibaro multisensors, enerwave motion sensors, and a few more brands, and all work just fine with OpenHab. The HabMin interface makes adding devices ease and all the configures are listed (with descriptions) so you can tailor the device to your needs. OpenHab is not the easiest thing to move over to, for those you are reading this, you probably want something other than vera. I looked at HomeSeer as well, but the cost it ridiculous. I like learning new things and OpenHab to me was a challenge. I have barley tapped into its potential and with OpenHab 2 coming out I am sure it will get better, although 1.71 is very stable. I wrote this to give people my perspective on OpenHab and how it made me excited with Home Automation again, the last 6 months with vera pushed me to the point of stopping all together until they got their act together. I remember getting my first vera 2 years ago and have a light turn on automatically to a certain brightness based on the time of day, when I walked into a room and all I could think of was “What else can I do?” With OpenHab I know that the potential is there. My next project is to start building my own sensors for 10 dollars after seeing MySensors and putting them into picture frames or teddy bears.
