Innovative input devices for openHAB

1. Innovative Input Devices for
openHAB
AN OVERVIEW OF THE INTEGRATION OF FLIC BUTTONS, BATTERY-
LESS BLE WALL SWITCHES, KNOCKI AND NUIMO
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2. How to control your smart home wireless without
a touchscreen (and without voice)?
• Why?
• Wiring complicated for existing real estates, especially rental apartments
• Wireless offers more flexibility, e.g. mounting even on glass
• Touchscreens are energy-hungry
• Touchscreens don‘t give haptical feedback, you have to keep your eyes on them to see if you clicked at the right place
• Touchscreens are (often) the slowest interface to trigger something and (usually) have a low WAF
• Touchscreens tend to have a shorter product lifecycle and a shorter lifespan than many other input devices
• Voice control needs silence and potentially, interruption of a (human) conversation
• Alternatives to touchscreens:
• Wall Switches (AVM, Z-Wave, Hue, EnOcean)
• … ?
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3. EnOcean
Battery-less wall switches
Pro Contra
No state: More possibilities on rockers (*may also
apply to stateless battery-operated rockers)
No state: Device is „dead“ as long as it is not used
Less maintenance effort & cost Louder than battery-operated devices
No „out of battery“ trouble „Fire & forget“ communication, no energy reserve
for error handling -> usually poorer reliability
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• Old & busted (since 2002): EnOcean 868 / 902 MHz Protocol for battery-less radio transmission; needs seperate
radio module. openHAB EnOcean Binding is available.
• New hotness (also powered by EnOcean): Battery-less radio transmission with
◦ ZigBee via Hue Bridge based on EnOcean, e.g. Senic Friends of Hue Smart Switch
◦ Bluetooth via openHAB Bluetooth Binding, PR #9223 -> unfortunately, fully assembled devices are barely available on the consumer market
◦ All Bluetooth devices are based on EnOcean PTM 215B, in Germany e.g. also available under brand Eltako FTE 210 – 215BLE
◦ Thermokon (good-looking & high-quality, but expensive), e.g. in Germany available via individual request on voltus.de
◦ Eltako FT55BLE (comparably cheap) available on a few specialised German online shops
◦ Casambi RW2EBTW & RW4EBTW (mid-class), in Germany e.g. available here: https://www.ledclusive.de/casambi-wandschalter-batterielos-685?c=334

4. Flic
Battery-powered BLE mini buttons
• Successful start-up (Shortcut Labs), already 2nd generation is sold (https://flic.io/)
• Especially 2nd generation is very mature & reliable
• Does work either via
◦ Smartphone app or
◦ Proprietary bridge by Shortcut Labs or
◦ any Linux device with proprietary Flic Linux SDK (fliclib-linux-hci / flicd) by Shortcut Labs
• Flic Button Binding offers openHAB integration with the Flic Linux SDK
• Flic Linux SDK can also run on openHABian
• Separate Bluetooth adapter is required as Flic Linux SDK cannot share BT adapter with other devices
• Available on the Marketplace or as JAR for openHAB 2
• For openHAB 3, working development version is submitted with PR #9234
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5. Knocki
Use any surface as your smarthome interface
• Just knock on a surface where
Knocki is installed
• More information under
https://knocki.com/
• Unfortunately, no SDK available
yet
• Integration with openHAB
currently only possible via IFTTT
• Recommendation: Wait until
SDK or at least HTTP integration
is available, start-up Haptic does
may not survive
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6. Nuimo Control
Something special...
• Innovative input device by start-up Senic with
◦ A touch panel including a 9x9 LED matrix
◦ An included haptic button under the touch panel
◦ A stepless wheel with extreme accuracy
◦ More information at https://senic.com/nuimo-control
• Python-based openHAB Nuimo Integration available at https://github.com/pfink/nuimo-openhab-
python (uses Bluez for communication with Nuimo & REST API for communication with openHAB)
• Unique concept: Configuring a device like a UI via openHAB Sitemaps
• Not sold anymore on the Senic online shop. Special offering for openHAB community members who
plan to use the openHAB Nuimo Integration: White Nuimo for 99,-€ (50% discount) in clearance
sale. In case you‘re interested, write a mail with „Nuimo openHAB Sale“ to hi@senic.com
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7. Thanks!
QUESTIONS?
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