OpenHAB (Home Automation Bus) Reaches Version 1.0

OpenHAB (open Home Automation Bus) has reached a major milestone in its development, after two years in development the open source platform is now at version 1.0.  OpenHAB allows you to communicate with the different appliances in your home; you can chat using Jabber or Google Talk and use your Google Calendar to set off events.

The home automation platform was developed in Java using the OSGi methodology and done using Eclipse Equinox with the jetty web server.  OpenHAB is hardware and protocol independent allowing different bus systems, hardware and interfaces to work together.

The OpenHAB web server provides a selection of web interfaces for interacting with the system as well as all APIs. You can use Android or iOS devices as clients to communicate with the web server. OpenHAB can also use iOS push notifications with the iOS client to alert the user to specific events. Being open source has allow OpenHAB to be easily extended beyond the mainstream automation tasks of switching lights, activating plug sockets or moving blinds.

The server can be communicated with through the XMPP protocol, time controls and more complex scripts are written using a domain specific language created using Eclipse Xtext.  “Using Xtext to develop that language allows users access to a syntax highlighting, content assisting IDE for the language.”

Source: h-online