Using The Wink Hub With OpenHAB

Spend enough time learning about home automation settings and you'll quickly discover that there are two competing philosophies. The first one wanted to connect an Arduino to every socket, and everything was connected to a cheap ebay radio module. The second vision of home automation requires very expensive hardware to communicate with other expensive modules. The Arduino solution is an infinitely customizable system, and commercial solutions, for some strange reason, turn to the "cloud". There is no average. At least until [Eric] started looking for hardware solutions.

[Eric] wanted to control some of the GE Link bulbs using a mobile phone, computer, or the Internet. They are considered the best bulbs on the market in terms of price and performance, but they can only be controlled using ZigBee. This led [Eric] to an interesting hack that gave all Wink Hub owners local control over their devices. According to [Erik's] research, this was the only way the light was independent of "clouds".

Local management of Wink became possible only after reading [Eric's] article on rooting Wink (this article was published a few days ago). Since the device is rooted and [Eric] already has something in the house integrated with OpenHAB, it was an easy decision to control some of the Zigbee-enabled lights.

Once [Eric] gets a light bulb to talk to Wink, it's easy to integrate it with the rest of the equipment in his house. The new lamp is activated by an Arduino motion sensor, a door sensor and can be controlled using a smartphone or voice commands. Wink can also be completely disconnected from the Internet. A good idea, because the ability to turn the lights on and off should not depend on the quality of your Internet connection.

Overview of installing OpenHAB - Smartthing and an alternative home helper