I was going to take a week off for Christmas but then I thought that that the announcement from my favorite Home Automation platform was worth shFaring. OpenHab 2.2 has arrived! 

You can check the release notes for a full list of changes. The list of improvements is endless but Kai Kreuzer, the founder of Openhab.org, has done a summary of the most noteworthy highlights on his blog.

Major Improvements

Language Server Protocol (LSP) Support and VS Code Extension

This is a huge step forward. It makes the whole process of editing configuration files like rules and sitemaps a walk in the park. It does a very good job helping you with the syntax, but what I find amazing is that it actually connects to your openhab server and allows you to browse through your items and things. I haven’t had time to deep dive into it yet but what I like it so far. Check the details here.

Home Builder

The other big step towards a more user-friendly experience is Home Builder. It is an addon that helps you with the first steps of your Home Automation System definition.  You only need to provide some details about your house and the objects that you are looking to control and Home Builder will generate sitemaps and items based on that. It does a good job and I am sure that many users will find it very helpful, I personally prefer to have more control over the infrastructure.

Bindings: Improvements and fixes

Among all the news related to Bindings, I was particularly excited about two of them, Chromecast and Milight Binding.

The Chromecast Binding is now able to get updates on the status of the player. This is particularly useful if you want to create rules like dimming the lights when the movie is about to start.

The Milight Binding now officially supports the Milight iBox, there is no need to create your own none-stable build and drop it into the addons folder.

First Impressions

• Positive:
  • I have been using it for a week and I am very happy. The upgrade took a just a few minutes and the system has been very stable so far.
  • The LSP support is mind-blowing. It makes the process of writing rules very smooth.
  • The list of supported devices keeps growing.
• Negative:
  • I was expecting to find a more advanced version of Paper UI but I haven’t seen many changes so far.
  • HabPanel has improved a lot but I don’t think is flexible enough yet.

The community keeps doing a great job releasing stable versions, OpenHab 2.2 is definitely worth trying.