I’ve been on a journey to integrate my smart home devices without making any physical changes to my rented property. One of the biggest challenges has been monitoring my electricity, water, and gas usage. After some research, I stumbled upon Pixometer, a free app that reads meter values from photos. It’s perfect for my needs since it doesn’t require any wiring changes or physical installations.
I’ve been using Pixometer for a while now and decided to dive into binding development to integrate it with OpenHAB. Inspired by other API bindings like Tankerkönig and AirQuality, I created a small binding that connects to the Pixometer API. This allows me to track my meter readings directly within OpenHAB, which is a huge convenience.
Currently, the binding is in an early alpha stage, but it’s already showing promise. I can set up a bridge to connect to the API, and it provides channels for the current reading value, the time of the reading, and a last_refresh status. I’ve been testing it in my environment, and while there are still some rough edges, the potential is clear.
If anyone else is in the same situation or already using Pixometer and wants to integrate it with OpenHAB, feel free to reach out! I’d love to hear about others’ experiences and collaborate on improving this binding. I’ll share the jar file once it’s stable in my own OpenHAB setup.
For those interested in learning more about Pixometer, you can check out their website here. Keep in mind that it’s currently only available in German and supports German measuring devices, but it’s still a fantastic tool for managing home utilities.