OpenHAB 

I really wouldn’t have Home Automation up and running in my Home if it wasn’t for Openhab. I’ve tried other mainstream home automation developers and found them to be too tied in to how they feel home automation should be and obviously flaunt their own and only their own products.

What I mean by this is that Openhab is vendor neutral, open source software. Lets break this down, it’s vendor neutral which means that it will work with a multitude of products from different companies so you can setup your own home with technology the way you like it and the list of products is ever expanding, they already support hundreds of products already . Open source means it open for any one to look through the code and develop it to create enhancements, better security or simply to check that no little nasty bugs or malicious code is part of it . Usually this means that should someone create an enhancement or security feature they give this back to the developer of the original source and thus a community is created where every one benefits from everyone’s input .

Now Openhab isn’t for everyone as it does require a certain amount of technical knowledge to begin with , however if your willing to learn new things and are interested in home automation, that is continually being developed by a community of people who are passionate about home automation, then Openhab is definitely for you.

I started off with Openhab with only a relatively small knowledge about home automation, software , hardware and computers in general. Now I consider myself someone who is reasonably good and I can achieve most of the what I want to create in Home automation. Should I find myself needing help with a project, Documentation is no shortfall with Openhab. But the largest benefit is the support provided on the Forum without which I wouldn’t have managed to develop anything.

Openhab is the complete package it supports a large number of products from different companies , it’s getting more user friendly by each passing day and the support for people needing help is exceptional.