docs.openhab.orgIntroduction | openHAB

openHAB Blog Download Documentation Add-ons Community About Get Involved Who We Are Contribute Events Support openHAB Foundation Donate Resources Showcase/How-tos Privacy Policy myopenHAB GitHub Blog Download Documentation Add-ons Community About Get Involved Who We Are Contribute Events Support openHAB Foundation Donate Resources Showcase/How-tos Privacy Policy myopenHAB GitHub Welcome to openHAB Introduction Concepts Concepts Overview Things Items Thing Discovery Audio & Voice Units Of Measurement Installation Guide Installation Overview Linux Windows macOS openHABian Raspberry Pi Armbian Docker Synology DiskStation QNAP NAS Security New User Tutorial Tutorial Overview First-time setup of openHAB openHAB UIs Configuration of openHAB Creating a sitemap Working with rules and scripts Looking to the logs Persistence Configuration Guide Configuration Overview Installation of Add-ons Things Items Sitemaps Persistence Rules Transformation Services Actions Icons JSR223 Scripting Services Multimedia Migration from 1.x Interfaces and Ecosystem Initial Setup - Package Selection Editors Home Builder Paper UI HABmin HABot HABPanel Basic UI Classic UI Next-Gen Rules Eclipse IoT Marketplace REST API Android App iOS App Windows 10 App Amazon Alexa Google Assistant Apple HomeKit IFTTT Mycroft.AI Administration Guide Advanced Functionality and Administrative Tasks The Console Runtime Commands Bundle Management Logging JsonDB Storage Developer Guide Overview & Introduction Coding Guidelines Bindings Automation Modules Transformations / Profiles IO Services Persistence Service Audio & Voice Developer Appendix Build System OSGi Framework Tools Internationalization Event Bus Writing tests Contribution Governance Compatibility Layer Welcome! The open H ome A utomation B us (openHAB, pronounced ˈəʊpənˈhæb ) is an open source, technology agnostic home automation platform which runs as the center of your smart home! Some of openHAB's strengths are: Its ability to integrate a multitude of other devices and systems. openHAB includes other home automation systems, (smart) devices and other technologies into a single solution To provide a uniform user interface and a common approach to automation rules across the entire system, regardless of the number of manufacturers and sub-systems involved Giving you the most flexible tool available to make almost any home automation wish come true; if you can think it, odds are that you can implement it with openHAB. # What You Need to Know Before You Start When home automation just seems to work, it is always the result of hard work. Home automation is fascinating and requires a considerable investment of your time. Here are some key considerations especially for new users. To be successful, you will need to: Start slowly and one step at a time Be prepared to learn Remain flexible in how you want to achieve your goal Celebrate all the small successes Remember, openHAB is just a computer program. The computer will only do what you tell it to do. openHAB can provide many default solutions that are easy to setup. On the flip side, the more you insist that everything should look and work exactly the way you want it, the more work you will have to invest. openHAB is fully customizable, but doing so will require substantial effort on your part. After you have read the documentation for openHAB, you will have: Identified a computer on which to run openHAB Learned how to install openHAB, as well as all other software that is needed to run openHAB (e.g., JAVA) Learned how your smart devices communicate with openHAB; how to make openHAB give commands to your smart devices; and how you can interact with openHAB Keep your focus. For almost everything, there is more than one way in openHAB to achieve a goal or perform a task. Initially, this can be frustrating and confusing, but it also gives great flexibility and does not mandate the use of certain devices or tools. You may need to learn more about computers than you currently do. But this may not be a problem as you are reading the documentation of software that will enable you to do home automation yourself. Lastly, be prepared to start a new hobby: home automation. Basic functions can be achieved in openHAB rather quickly, e.g., switch lights on at a certain time. Others will require much more effort and thought, e.g., how do I determine that someone is home, including guests, but not counting pets? The openHAB forum is a great place to learn and discuss. # A Quick Overview openHAB communicates electronically with smart and not-so-smart devices, performs user-defined actions and provides web-pages with user-defined information as well as user-defined tools to interact with all devices. To achieve this, openHAB segments and compartmentalizes certain functions and operations. The following table gives a top-level description of the most important concepts as well as a link to more information: Concepts Meaning More Information Bindings are the openHAB component that provides the interface to interact electronically with devices see below Things are the first openHAB (software) generated representation of your devices click for more info on Things Channels are the openHAB (software) connection between “Things” and “Items” (see below) see below Items are the openHAB (software) generated representation of information about the devices click for more info on Items Rules that perform automatic actions (in its simplest form: if "this" happens, openHAB will do "that") click for more info on Rules Sitemap is the openHAB (software) generated user interface (web site) that presents information and allows for interactions click for more info on Sitemaps While the table above gives an overview, please remember that it is incomplete and a simplification of openHAB for the sake of this overview. More elements will be introduced in later chapters of the documentation. All the above Concepts are explained in more depth on other pages that can be accessed either through the sidebar or the links in the table above. # Channels Channels are the logical link between a Thing and an Item . Channels originate from Things definition and define how your Thing can communicate with Item (and vice versa). You will create channels when defining your Thing . During the definition of your Thing you will identify the channel to which your Item will be linked. These two steps ensure that openHAB can transmit the information from the Thing to the Item (and vice versa). # Bindings Bindings are software packages that are installed by the user in openHAB. The main purpose of Bindings is to establish the connection between your device and your Thing . Bindings communicate with your device and translate all commands to and from openHAB between your device and your Thing . Bindings are provided in the Add-on section of this website. Here you will find a searchable list of several hundred bindings to support as many devices as possible. New bindings are regularly added as developers integrate more devices into openHAB. For each binding, detailed instructions and examples are provided that include guidance on configuration (if any) of the binding itself, the definition of Things supported by this binding and the Channels these Things provide. In most cases, the description also contains a fully worked out example that includes a definition of Things and its Channels, Items linked to those Channels and the use of these Items in a sitemap. # While You Are Getting Started To all newcomers: please read the section New User Tutorial . That section provides you with step-by-step instructions for your first easy setup. OpenHAB runs on most popular platforms such as Linux, Windows and MacOS and on almost any hardware ranging from Raspberry Pis to desktop computers and server PCs. You can find specific installation instructions for these and other platforms in the Installation Overview article. If you have a strong preference towards a...