Development build 19 – richer zone telemetry, active running zone, and native image channels

Rachio binding for openHAB 5.x – richer zone telemetry, active running zone, and native image channels

This development release improves the Smart Irrigation Controller experience in openHAB and incorporates feedback from the ongoing binding review.

The focus of this build is to expose richer zone-level information, make the currently running irrigation zone directly available on the controller Thing, and add native openHAB Image channel support for Rachio zone photos.

Main additions
Expanded Zone telemetry

The rachio:zone Thing now exposes significantly more data already provided by the Rachio API, including:

Depth of water
Saturated depth of water
Management allowed depletion
Root zone depth
Efficiency
Yard area
Last watered date
Fixed runtime
Maximum runtime
Runtime without multiplier
Schedule data modified state

These channels make the detailed irrigation model maintained by Rachio directly visible to openHAB rules, dashboards, and persistence.

Active running zone channels on the controller

The rachio:device Thing now exposes the currently active watering zone through new controller-level channels:

Active zone number
Active zone name
Active zone ID

These are updated from irrigation webhook events when a zone run starts and are cleared when the run stops or completes. This removes the need for user-side scripts that previously tracked active zone state manually.

Native zone image channel

Zone Things now provide a native openHAB Image channel in addition to the existing imageUrl String channel.

This allows Rachio zone photos to be linked directly to openHAB Image Items and displayed in supported openHAB UIs without extra scripting or URL handling.

Existing imageUrl behavior is preserved for backward compatibility.
Image download failures do not break the Zone Thing lifecycle.
Verified in this build

The following were confirmed during testing:

New native Image channels appear on Zone Things.
Zone images render correctly in the openHAB UI.
Existing zone image URL handling remains intact.
The binding starts cleanly after update.
Existing irrigation controller, zone, schedule, and webhook functionality remains stable.
The webhook architecture and event-type handling introduced in earlier development releases continue to work.
Notes

This release directly addresses review feedback requesting:

deeper Zone telemetry exposure,
a binding-native active running zone state,
and support for modern openHAB Image channels.
Validation status

This release is considered functionally complete for:

expanded zone telemetry,
native zone image channels,
controller active running zone support at the implementation level.

One final runtime verification is still recommended for the active-zone controller channels during a real webhook-driven zone start/stop sequence.