It is really incredible how the amount of contributions to openHAB increases: Up to our last release in April, we had a new binding about every two weeks. With the current release 1.3, we are almost up to a new binding every single week! In total we have now reached 47 different bindings for very diverse systems and devices. Let me give you a few examples:
The Z-Wave Binding: Especially in the US, Z-Wave is a very widespread radio-based home automation technology, but it is also common in all other parts of the world. Z-Wave offers a mesh topology with security features and low-power modes for battery operated devices. You can add Z-Wave support to openHAB either by using a USB stick or by using a RaZberry. There is a huge amount of interesting devices available on the market - from heating valves and sensors to plugs and alarm systems.
The EnOcean Binding: Just like Z-Wave, EnOcean is a radio technology for home automation purposes. It speciality is a feature called "energy harvesting" - this means that some EnOcean devices are capable to get their required energy from other sources than mains power or batteries. This is pretty cool as it means that you can have wall-mounted switches without any cables and without having to regularly replace batteries. Is there anything more flexible? This especially perfectly complements a system like Philips Hue: With openHAB you can finally use physical switches to control your Hue bulbs - check out the example video.
The Fritz AHA Binding: In case you use an AVM Fritz!Box as your router, you might be interested in this binding - it allows you to directly integrate the new AVM Home Automation (AHA) devices such as Fritz!DECT 200 in openHAB. As you do not need any additional gateway besides the Fritz!Box, this is a great way to start with home automation experiments. Another useful feature of these AHA devices is that they are not only remotely switchable, but that they are also power meters - this can be nicely used in automation rules for certain use cases, e.g. for noticing that your washing is done.
The digitalSTROM Binding: If you want to retrofit a classical electric installation, the powerline-communication (PLC) based digitalSTROM is a fascinating technology. You simply "pimp" your electrical cabinet with a digitalSTROM Server and digitalSTROM Meters and then you put the small switches directly in your lamps or devices. Besides simple switching and dimming, you can also monitor the energy consumption. The integration with openHAB brings ditigalSTROM users flexible user interfaces and powerful automation rules on top of the extraordinary integration possibilities with other home automation systems.
The Z-Wave Binding: Especially in the US, Z-Wave is a very widespread radio-based home automation technology, but it is also common in all other parts of the world. Z-Wave offers a mesh topology with security features and low-power modes for battery operated devices. You can add Z-Wave support to openHAB either by using a USB stick or by using a RaZberry. There is a huge amount of interesting devices available on the market - from heating valves and sensors to plugs and alarm systems.
The EnOcean Binding: Just like Z-Wave, EnOcean is a radio technology for home automation purposes. It speciality is a feature called "energy harvesting" - this means that some EnOcean devices are capable to get their required energy from other sources than mains power or batteries. This is pretty cool as it means that you can have wall-mounted switches without any cables and without having to regularly replace batteries. Is there anything more flexible? This especially perfectly complements a system like Philips Hue: With openHAB you can finally use physical switches to control your Hue bulbs - check out the example video.
The Fritz AHA Binding: In case you use an AVM Fritz!Box as your router, you might be interested in this binding - it allows you to directly integrate the new AVM Home Automation (AHA) devices such as Fritz!DECT 200 in openHAB. As you do not need any additional gateway besides the Fritz!Box, this is a great way to start with home automation experiments. Another useful feature of these AHA devices is that they are not only remotely switchable, but that they are also power meters - this can be nicely used in automation rules for certain use cases, e.g. for noticing that your washing is done.
The digitalSTROM Binding: If you want to retrofit a classical electric installation, the powerline-communication (PLC) based digitalSTROM is a fascinating technology. You simply "pimp" your electrical cabinet with a digitalSTROM Server and digitalSTROM Meters and then you put the small switches directly in your lamps or devices. Besides simple switching and dimming, you can also monitor the energy consumption. The integration with openHAB brings ditigalSTROM users flexible user interfaces and powerful automation rules on top of the extraordinary integration possibilities with other home automation systems.
The Tinkerforge Binding: This is pretty cool for the DIY home automation. Tinkerforge is a system of open source hardware building blocks that allows to combine sensor and actor blocks by plug and play. There are for example blocks for temperature, humidity or air pressure measurement and blocks for I/O, LCDs and motor control available. The complete List is available here. You can create your individual hardware system by choosing the necessary building blocks for your project and combine it with other home automation products.
The MiLight Binding: If you think that Philips Hue is too expensive, the MiLight bulbs might be an option for you. These are also sold as "EasyBulb" or "LimitlessLED" bulbs and come with a Wifi gateway. You can choose between white bulbs which allow dimming and changing the color temperature and RGB bulbs, which have bright dimmable colors, but no saturation option - so they cannot be used for "normal" white light.
Nonetheless, these are very affordable devices which can give you a nice jump start in the the world of lighting automation!
Besides these examples, there are many more specific bindings, e.g. for Epson projectors, Onkyo AV receivers, the OpenSprinklerPi, certain heatpumps etc. Other new features include the possibility to stream your webcams through a proxy without having to expose them directly and new optional rule actions, such as an XBMC notification. Not to mention a long list of smaller improvements and bug fixes. Check out the release notes to see all the details.
So what is up next? Well, the next big event will be our talk at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco on September 26. Furthermore, we plan many organisational changes; the biggest ones being the move to GitHub and EPL and contributing the core openHAB framework to the Eclipse Foundation as a basis for the new Eclipse Smart Home project. Learn more about this at our talk at EclipseCon Europe in Ludwigsburg end of October.
These are really exciting times and it is thrilling to see how openHAB is embraced by the community!
The MiLight Binding: If you think that Philips Hue is too expensive, the MiLight bulbs might be an option for you. These are also sold as "EasyBulb" or "LimitlessLED" bulbs and come with a Wifi gateway. You can choose between white bulbs which allow dimming and changing the color temperature and RGB bulbs, which have bright dimmable colors, but no saturation option - so they cannot be used for "normal" white light.
Nonetheless, these are very affordable devices which can give you a nice jump start in the the world of lighting automation!
Besides these examples, there are many more specific bindings, e.g. for Epson projectors, Onkyo AV receivers, the OpenSprinklerPi, certain heatpumps etc. Other new features include the possibility to stream your webcams through a proxy without having to expose them directly and new optional rule actions, such as an XBMC notification. Not to mention a long list of smaller improvements and bug fixes. Check out the release notes to see all the details.
So what is up next? Well, the next big event will be our talk at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco on September 26. Furthermore, we plan many organisational changes; the biggest ones being the move to GitHub and EPL and contributing the core openHAB framework to the Eclipse Foundation as a basis for the new Eclipse Smart Home project. Learn more about this at our talk at EclipseCon Europe in Ludwigsburg end of October.
These are really exciting times and it is thrilling to see how openHAB is embraced by the community!