openHAB

openHAB is a vendor- and technology-agnostic Open Source automation software for your home. In this one-day workshop we introduce openHAB2 to participants and show them how to configure and use certain aspects of the software, and in particular, discuss the terminology used by the program. In addition to openHAB we will introduce you to MQTT, tell you what it is, and show you how you can adopt this highly flexible communication protocol and integrate “things” with openHAB. Participants will be able to use an ESP8266 preloaded with a small program for lab work with openHAB and MQTT.

Our focus will be for the “Intranet” of things, i.e. we will concentrate on keeping openHAB unreacheable from the Internet, but we will talk about accessing data on the Internet.

The goal of the one-day workshop is to familiarize ourselves with parts of the openHAB 2 software required to perform home automation tasks, and learn the basics of MQTT in order to later build automation scenarios.

Audience

people who are interested in learning about home automation with the openHAB 2 home automation broker and MQTT.

Voraussetzungen

Participants should be familiar with the command line, and it would be beneficial if they had some experience with Unix/Linux, but Windows is fine as well; we will be using Linux machines for the lab work with a choice of text editors with which to edit openHAB's configuration files (items, things, rules, etc.). Programming knowledge is not necessary, but we will scratch the surface of the openHAB Rules language.

Hands-on labs will be the main focus of the workshop, and participants will get sundry notes along but are expected to take notes themselves.

Inhalt

Introduction

  • A few words about home automation.
  • Introduction to openHAB 2
  • On Bindings, Things, Channels, Items and Site Maps
  • Using MQTT as our home “bus”
  • Mosquitto and its utilities
  • Flicking a switch with an MQTT publish
  • Examples of openHAB interacting with real-world objects
  • Introducing Rules and Scripts
  • Using the HTTP API to switch openHAB items
  • On TCP and UDP for items
  • Accessing HTTP services
  • Persistence and Transforms
  • Overview of installation methods: finding your way
  • Practical exercises with openHAB 2 on Linux

Kurszeiten

Wer möchte, reist bis 22 Uhr am Vortag an und nutzt den Abend bereits zum Fachsimpeln am Kamin oder im Park.

An den Kurstagen dann von 9-18 Uhr (mit 2 Kaffee- und 1 Mittagspause) etwa 60% Schulungen und 40% Übungen. Selbstverständlich arbeitet jeder Teilnehmer am von uns gestellten Notebook oft parallel zum Referenten mit.

Anschließend Abendessen und Angebote für Fachsimpeln, Ausflüge uvm. Wir schaffen eine Atmosphäre, in der Fachleute sich ungezwungen austauschen. Wer das nicht will, wird zu nichts gezwungen und findet auch jederzeit Ruhe.