ELRO Connects Binding

The ELRO Connects binding provides integration with the ELRO Connects (opens new window) smart home system.

The system uses a Wi-Fi Hub (K1 Connector) to enable communication with various smart home devices. The devices communicate with the hub using 868MHz RF. The binding communicates with the ELRO Connects system and K1 Connector using UDP in the local network. Optionally, the Elro Connects account can be used to retrieve the available K1 Connectors with their properties from the ELRO Connects cloud.

The binding exposes the devices' status and controls to openHAB. Console commands support adding and configuring devices on the hub. The K1 connector allows setting up scenes through a mobile application. The binding supports selecting a specific scene.

Many of the sensor devices are battery powered.

Supported Things

The ELRO Connects supported device types are:

• Elro Connects account: account
• K1 connector hub: connector
• Smoke detector: smokealarm
• Carbon monoxide detector: coalarm
• Heat detector: heatalarm
• Water detector: wateralarm
• Windows/door contact: entrysensor
• Motion detector: motionsensor
• Temperature and humidity monitor: temperaturesensor
• Plug-in switch: powersocket

account is a bridge thing type that will allow automatic discovery and configuration of the available K1 connectors on the specified ELRO Connects account. This bridge is optional. It is used to discover the required K1 connector hub(s), using a call to the ELRO Connects cloud. Without the account bridge, the connector bridge needs to be defined manually. If no account bridge is defined, all communication between openHAB and the ELRO Connects system will be local, not using the ELRO Connects cloud.

The connector is the bridge thing representing a K1 connector. All other things are connected to the connector bridge.

Testing was only done with smoke and water detectors connected to a K1 connector. The firmware version of the K1 connector was 2.0.3.30 at the time of testing.

Discovery

The ELRO Connects account cannot be auto-discovered. The account bridge is optional, but helpful to discover the K1 connectors on an ELRO Connects account and configure them. All online K1 connectors configured on the account will be discovered. Notice that K1 connectors in another network than the LAN will also get discovered, but will not go online when accepted from the inbox without adjusting the connector configuration (set the IP address).

The K1 connector connector will be auto-discovered when an ELRO Connects account bridge has been created and initialized. It can also be configured manually without first setting up an account bridge and linking it to that account bridge. Once the bridge thing representing the K1 connector is correctly set up and online, discovery will allow discovering all devices connected to the K1 connector (as set up in the Elro Connects app).

If devices are outside reliable RF range, devices known to the K1 hub will be discovered but may stay offline when added as a thing. Alarm devices can still trigger alarms and pass them between each other, even if the connection with the hub is lost. It will not be possible to receive alarms and control them from openHAB in this case.

Thing Configuration

ELRO Connects account

Parameter	Advanced	Description
username		Username for the ELRO Connects cloud account, required
password		Password for the ELRO Connects cloud account, required
enableBackgroundDiscovery	Y	Enable background discovery of hubs, polling the ELRO Connects cloud account every 5 min.

K1 connector hub

Parameter	Advanced	Description
connectorId		Required parameter, should be set to ST_xxxxxxxxxxxx with xxxxxxxxxxxx the lowercase MAC address of the connector. It will be discovered when an account bridge has been initialized. This parameter can also be found in the ELRO Connects mobile application
ipAdress	Y	IP address of the ELRO Connects K1 Connector, not required if connector and openHAB server in same subnet
refreshInterval	Y	This parameter controls the connection refresh heartbeat interval. The default is 60s
legacyFirmware	Y	Flag for legacy firmware, should be set to true if ELRO Connects K1 Connector firmware has version lower or equal to 2.0.14. If the connector is discovered from the account, this parameter will be set automatically. The default is false

Devices connected to K1 connected hub

Parameter	Advanced	Description
deviceId		Required parameter, set by discovery. For manual configuration, use the ´elroconnects devices´ console command to get a list of available devices. It should be a number

Channels

ELRO Connects account

The account bridge thing does not have any channels.

K1 connector hub

The connector bridge thing has only one channel:

Channel ID	Item Type	Access Mode	Description
scene	String	RW	current scene

The scene channel has a dynamic state options list with all possible scene choices available in the hub.

The connector also has an alarm trigger channel that will get triggered when the alarm is triggered for any device connected to the hub. This will also trigger if an alarm on a device goes off and the thing corresponding to the device is not configured in openHAB. The payload for the trigger channel is the deviceId for the device triggering the alarm.

Smoke, carbon monoxide, heat and water alarms

All these things have the same channels:

Channel ID	Item Type	Access Mode	Description
muteAlarm	Switch	RW	mute alarm
testAlarm	Switch	RW	test alarm
signal	Number	R	signal strength between 0 and 4, higher is stronger
battery	Number	R	battery level in %
lowBattery	Switch	R	on for low battery (below 15%)

Each also has a trigger channel, resp. smokeAlarm, coAlarm, heatAlarm and waterAlarm. The payload for these trigger channels is empty.

Door/window contact

The entrysensor thing has the following channels:

Channel ID	Item Type	Access Mode	Description
entry	Contact	R	open/closed door/window
signal	Number	R	signal strength between 0 and 4, higher is stronger
battery	Number	R	battery level in %
lowBattery	Switch	R	on for low battery (below 15%)

The entrysensor thing also has a trigger channel, entryAlarm.

Motion sensor

The motionsensor thing has the following channels:

Channel ID	Item Type	Access Mode	Description
motion	Switch	R	on when motion detected
signal	Number	R	signal strength between 0 and 4, higher is stronger
battery	Number	R	battery level in %
lowBattery	Switch	R	on for low battery (below 15%)

The motionsensor thing also has a trigger channel, motionAlarm.

Temperature and humidity monitor

The temperaturesensor thing has the following channels:

Channel ID	Item Type	Access Mode	Description
temperature	Number:Temperature	R	temperature
humidity	Number:Dimensionless	R	device status
signal	Number	R	signal strength between 0 and 4, higher is stronger
battery	Number	R	battery level in %
lowBattery	Switch	R	on for low battery (below 15%)

Plug-in switch

The powersocket thing has only one channel:

Channel ID	Item Type	Access Mode	Description
powerState	Switch	RW	power on/off

Console Commands

A number of console commands allow management of the Elro Connects K1 hub and devices. This makes it possible to add new devices to the hub, remove, rename or replace devices, without a need to use the Elro Connects mobile application. The full syntax and help text is available in the console using the elroconnects command.

Full Example

.things:

Bridge elroconnects:connector:myhub [ connectorId="ST_aabbccddaabbccdd", refreshInterval=120 ] {
    smokealarm 1 "LivingRoom" [ deviceId="1" ]
    coalarm 2 "Garage" [ deviceId="2" ]
    heatalarm 3 "Kitchen" [ deviceId="3" ]
    wateralarm 4 "Basement" [ deviceId="4" ]
    entrysensor 5 "Back Door" [ deviceId="5" ]
    motionsensor 6 "Hallway" [ deviceId="6" ]
    temperaturesensor 7 "Family Room" [ deviceId = "7" ]
    powersocket 8 "Television" [ deviceId = "8" ]
}

.items:

String Scene            {channel="elroconnects:connector:myhub:scene"}
Number BatteryLevel     {channel="elroconnects:smokealarm:myhub:1:battery"}
Switch AlarmTest        {channel="elroconnects:smokealarm:myhub:1:test"}

.sitemap:

Text item=Scene
Number item=BatteryLevel
Switch item=AlarmTest

Example trigger rule:

rule "example trigger rule"
when
    Channel 'elroconnects:smokealarm:myhub:1:smokeAlarm' triggered
then
    logInfo("Smoke alarm living room")
    ...
end

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