OpenHab and OmniPro

My current HA system is centered on OpmniPro with multiple other components tied together via old Homeseer and now discontinued HaikuHelper. Every few months I am renewing a search for a possible replacement of HaikuHelper, but without much success. Recently started looking at open source projects, and came across OpenHab, which claims having a driver for HAI.
 
Has anyone tried using OpenHab with HAI panel and could comment on the pros and cons? In particular, how reliable the system is and if all functionality is supported or just the basics?
 
 

I'm using it and it's stable and great.  I looked at it quite some time ago and thought it was cumbersome to configure, but the new 2.0 version is much easier.  It did take a little learning curve to figure things out, but once I understood how they did things, it was quick and easy to change to my needs.  I mostly use it as a web based and mobile phone based interface to my OPII.  I've recently just added some triggering from my Blue Iris camera system and that was also easy to configure and use.  I also have the Denon module loaded in it for control of my amp.  I've not had time to link in anything else.
 
I was previously using the H@ME app on iphone/ipad and this easily replaced that app and added so much more.  The files for configuring the web and mobile interface are text files, but it wasn't difficult and it gives a lot of flexibility.
 
I'm not a Java coder, so I haven't done any mods to the source code (and don't plan to) as it offers everything I need in the regular package.  One cool thing about it being Java based is that the whole installation runs in a JVM which means you can just move the whole directory structure to a Windows machine, Linux or Linux/Rpi setup.  There aren't any cumbersome installations - just unzip the file structure and run it as is.  I really like that.
 
There's several of us here using it now, so shoot any questions and I'll try to answer or someone else may.  I can do some screenshots of my mobile and web interface if that's what you're looking for.

Great, thanks for the feedback! I'll give this a try. If I get it working with my panel, the next thing I would look into is how to write a custom driver. It was so easy to do with the old homeseer, but I have not been able to port my existing setup to HS3 due to lack of documentation and seemingly broken functionality. Might as well try to learn a new system.

What are you looking to do with a custom driver?

To add components that are not available yet. I don't see a brultech energy monitor for example, or an LED alpha sign. I have a bunch of custom drivers implemented in Homeseer, but it would be great to consolidate into one system.

@Pica,
 
Apologies for going off kilter here relating to the tangent of the Homeseer HAI plugin.
 
What specific issues are you having with the new Leviton Omni Homeseer 3 plugin?
 
It is totally different than the serial Omni plugin from Homeseer 2.
 
It is much faster running in ethernet than the serial homeseer 2 plugin.
 
Audio is not yet implemented.
 
In HS2 I never used the stock variables and would script all of my triggers and events via the documented API stuff.

Pete, I don t have issues with HAI plugin (yet) because I cannot even run the HS3. Every 6 months or so I give it a try and run into issues. But the main turn off for me is the lack of scripting in HS3 on the level it has existed in HS Pro. I have an extensive system that I am not able to port to HS3. Every time I try, I get some kind of error that I really don't have time to track via the forum any more. I am still hopeful, but I have spent a few hours last weekend and again could not get very far. The forum is not encouraging as when I search for the errors I am getting, its usually a dead end thread when someone posts the same error question and there are no replies. Really sad as I was using Homeseer since 2000, but it's time to move on.

Well yeah the mechanisms of scripting are different in Homeseer 3 than Homeseer 2.  The event engine was totally rewritten.
 
Here have been testing the recent beta versions of HS3 and to date have not had issues.  That said the majority of testers have not had issues.
 
I have though seen more issues relating to running HS3 on Windows 10 than HS3 on the RPi's - Linux machines.
 
Where I see issues is too when folks utilize 20 plugins, hundreds of events and end up nesting circular endless loops of whatever they utilize which is easy to do when you get to hundreds of events and triggers.
 
Here have been taking it really slow and migrated HS3 from Windows to Linux and I have an easier time with Python, Perl or just Bash scripts.
 
My post was just a "don't get discouraged" type of post and keep trying. 

pete, are you using python scripts in HS3? I have not seen that as an option in documentation

It is not in the Homeseer 3 documentation to use Python.  Basically the scripts write a text file and Homeseer 3 reads the text file with a VB script and creates variables.  It is long math way as I assign the variable reference numbers in the script then in HS3 create same number reference number variables.  This one part that is different than HS2.  There are more pieces to a variable.

@JonW: Downloaded the openhab and reached the first road block How do I enable the HAI binding? It is not listed in the list of available bindings, and appears to be "unverified" and has to be installed manually. I cannot find a way to download it. Thanks for your help!

I'll have to go back and look at mine.  There is an option that can be enabled that shows beta and 1.x modules to download.  I know that I ended up just putting the HAI driver file in a folder and adding a line to the "things" file and it was then available.  
 
To do that, manually download the HAI driver from here:  
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/craigham-pub/org.openhab.binding.omnilink-2.2.0-SNAPSHOT.jar
 
Place that jar file in the folder: /OpenHAB/addons.  
You then need to tell OpenHAB to use it by creating a "things file" in  /OpenHAB/conf/things/home.things (define IP & HAI access code here)  See my sample attached.
 
You can then edit the two config files to define your HAI items.  See my samples attached.
/OpenHAB/conf/item/hai.items  (defines your items from your HAI panel)
/OpenHAB/conf/sitemaps/home.sitemap  (defines your web & phone control layout)
 
If you still have issues, I can get you up and running really fast by creating a ZIP of my OpenHAB folder and you'd only need to edit the 3 text files to match your system config and you'd be golden. 
 
Attached are the things, items and sitemap files.
 
View attachment OpenHAB_HAI_Files.zip

Thank you!!!

There's another step you'll probably want to do.
 
After your "Things" file is there to tell OpenHAB to use your Omni controller, open the PaperUI, go to "Inbox", click the "+" sign, then the Omnilink Binding and it will scan your OPII and load all of the items.

I was able to connect to the panel and get most of the items, but no units. Tried a couple of times, with the same result. Were you able to get units automatically or do they have to be created manually?