Flic Button Binding

openHAB binding for using Flic Buttons (opens new window) with a fliclib-linux-hci (opens new window) bridge.

Currently, although Flic Buttons are BLE devices, this binding only supports fliclib-linux-hci (flicd) as a bridge. The openHAB Bluetooth Bindings are not supported. Flicd requires a seperate Bluetooth adapter to work, so if you use this binding together with e.g. the Bluez Binding (opens new window), two physical Bluetooth adapters are required (one for Bluez and one for flicd). Be aware that flicd requires an initial internet connection for the verification of the buttons. After buttons are initially added to flicd, an internet connection is not required anymore.

Supported Things

Thing Type ID	Description
flicd-bridge	The bridge representing a running instance of fliclib-linux-hci (flicd) (opens new window) on the server.
button	The Flic button (supports Flic 1 buttons as well as Flic 2 buttons)

Discovery

• There is no automatic discovery for flicd-bridge available.
• After flicd-bridge is (manually) configured, buttons will be automatically discovered via background discovery as soon as they're added with simpleclient (opens new window).

If they're already attached to the flicd-bridge before configuring this binding, they can be discovered by triggering an active scan.

Thing Configuration

flicd-bridge

Example for textual configuration:

Bridge flicbutton:flicd-bridge:mybridge

The default host is localhost:5551 (this should be sufficient if flicd is running with default settings on the same server as openHAB). If your flicd service is running somewhere else, specify it like this:

Bridge flicbutton:flicd-bridge:mybridge [ hostname="<YOUR_HOSTNAME>",  port=<YOUR_PORT>]

If flicd is running on a remote host, please do not forget to start it with the parameter -s <openHAB IP>, otherwise it won't be accessible for openHAB (more details on fliclib-linux-hci (opens new window)).

button

For the button, the only config parameter is the MAC address. Normally, no textual configuration is necessary as buttons are auto discovered as soon as the bridge is configured. If you want to use textual configuration anyway, you can do it like this:

Bridge flicbutton:flicd-bridge:mybridge [ hostname="<YOUR_HOSTNAME>",  port=<YOUR_PORT>] {
    Thing button myflic1 "<YOUR_LABEL>" [address ="<MAC_ADDRESS>"]
    Thing button myflic2 "<YOUR_LABEL>" [address ="<MAC_ADDRESS>"]
    ...
}

You can lookup the MAC addresses of your buttons within the inbox of the UI. You're free to choose any label you like for your button.

Channels

Channel ID	Channel Type	Item Type	Description
rawbutton	System Trigger Channel (opens new window) system.rawbutton	Depends on the Trigger Profile (opens new window) used	Raw Button channel that triggers PRESSED and RELEASED events, allows to use openHAB profiles or own implementations via rules to detect e.g. double clicks, long presses etc.
button	System Trigger Channel (opens new window) system.button	Depends on the Trigger Profile (opens new window) used	Button channel that is using Flic's implementation for detecting long, short or double clicks. Triggers SHORT_PRESSED,DOUBLE_PRESSED and LONG_PRESSED events.
battery-level	System State Channel (opens new window) system.battery-level	Number	Represents the battery level as a percentage (0-100%).

Example

Initial setup

1. Setup and run flicd as described in fliclib-linux-hci (opens new window). Please consider that you need a separate Bluetooth adapter. Shared usage with other Bluetooth services (e.g. Bluez) is not possible.
2. Connect your buttons to flicd using the simpleclient as described in fliclib-linux-hci (opens new window). Flicd has to run in background the whole time, simpleclient can be killed after you successfully test the button connects.
3. Add a flicd-bridge via the UI or textual configuration. Please consider that flicd only accepts connections from localhost by default, to enable remote connections from openHAB you have to use the --server-addr parameter as described in fliclib-linux-hci (opens new window).
4. When the bridge is online, buttons newly added via simpleclient will automatically get discovered via background discovery. To discover buttons that were set up before the binding was setup, please run an active scan.

Configuration Example using Profiles

Profiles (opens new window) are the recommended way to use this binding.

demo.things:

Bridge flicbutton:flicd-bridge:local-flicd {
    Thing button flic_livingroom "Yellow Button Living Room" [address = "60:13:B3:02:18:BD"]
    Thing button flic_kitchen "Black Button Kitchen" [address = "B5:7E:59:78:86:9F"]
}

demo.items:

Dimmer Light_LivingRoom  { channel="milight:rgbLed:milight2:4:ledbrightness", channel="flicbutton:button:local-flicd:flic_livingroom:rawbutton" [profile="rawbutton-toggle-switch"], channel="flicbutton:button:local-flicd:flic_kitchen:rawbutton" [profile="rawbutton-toggle-switch"] }  // We have a combined kitchen / livingroom, so we control the living room lights with switches from the living room and from the kitchen
Switch Light_Kitchen    { channel="hue:group:1:kitchen-bulbs:switch", channel="flicbutton:button:local-flicd:flic_kitchen:rawbutton" [profile="rawbutton-toggle-switch"] }

Configuration Example using Rules

It's also possible to setup Rules (opens new window). The following rules help to initially test your setup as they'll trigger log messages on incoming events.

rule "Button rule using the button channel"

when
    Channel "flicbutton:button:local-flicd:flic_livingroom:button" triggered SHORT_PRESSED
then
    logInfo("Flic", "Flic 'short pressed' triggered")
end

rule "Button rule directly using the rawbutton channel"

when
    Channel "flicbutton:button:local-flicd:flic_livingroom:rawbutton" triggered
then
    logInfo("Flic", "Flic pressed: " + receivedEvent.event)
end

Caught a mistake or want to contribute to the documentation? Edit this page on GitHub (opens new window)