Zmartify Modbus Binding

This is a custom built binding for communicating with pre-defined Modbus controlled devices. It's design goal is to be easy to install and use, hence compromising the full flexibility for 'OpenHAB Modbus binding'

All supported modbus devices must be preconfigured into the binding. The binding can be extended with support for more device types including devices types using a non-standard modbus implementation as Jablotron AC-116.

Give some details about what this binding is meant for - a protocol, system, specific device.

If possible, provide some resources like pictures, a YouTube video, etc. to give an impression of what can be done with this binding. You can place such resources into a doc folder next to this README.md.

Supported Things

Thing	Type	Description
tcp	Bridge	Modbus TCP server (Modbus TCP slave)
serial	Bridge	Modbus serial slave
Currently it supports

• Jablotron AC-116 Hydronic floor heating controller also known as Wavin ....

  • Support for Thermostat TP-150 and Valve

• Nilan Air Ventilation controller

  • Support based on xxx

Discovery

After the Serial Controller and the primary Modbus device (i,e, AC-116) has been configured, its subdevices is auto-discovered as thing. If the Modbus has connection to i.e. Thermostats etc. they in addition will be discovered as separate 'things'

Binding Configuration

If your binding requires or supports general configuration settings, please create a folder cfg and place the configuration file <bindingId>.cfg inside it. In this section, you should link to this file and provide some information about the options. The file could e.g. look like:

# Configuration for the Philips Hue Binding
#
# Default secret key for the pairing of the Philips Hue Bridge.
# It has to be between 10-40 (alphanumeric) characters
# This may be changed by the user for security reasons.
secret=EclipseSmartHome

Note that it is planned to generate some part of this based on the information that is available within ESH-INF/binding of your binding.

If your binding does not offer any generic configurations, you can remove this section completely.

Thing Configuration

Describe what is needed to manually configure a thing, either through the (Paper) UI or via a thing-file. This should be mainly about its mandatory and optional configuration parameters. A short example entry for a thing file can help!

Note that it is planned to generate some part of this based on the XML files within ESH-INF/thing of your binding.

Channels

Here you should provide information about available channel types, what their meaning is and how they can be used.

Note that it is planned to generate some part of this based on the XML files within ESH-INF/thing of your binding.

Main Features

The binding polls (or reads) Modbus data using function codes (FC) FC01 (Read coils), FC02 (Read discrete inputs), FC03 (Read multiple holding registers) or FC04 (Read input registers). This polled data is converted to data suitable for use in openHAB. Functionality exists to interpret typical number formats (e.g. single precision float).

The binding can also write data to Modbus slaves using FC05 (Write single coil), FC06 (Write single holding register), FC15 (Write multiple coils) or FC16 (Write multiple holding registers).

Caveats And Limitations

Please note the following caveats or limitations

• the binding does not act as Modbus slave (e.g. as Modbus TCP server).
• the binding does not support Modbus RTU over Modbus TCP, also known as "Modbus over TCP/IP" or "Modbus over TCP" or "Modbus RTU/IP", although normal "Modbus TCP" is supported. However, there is a workaround: you can use a Virtual Serial Port Server, to emulate a COM Port and Bind it with openHAB using Modbus Serial.

Background Material

Reader of the documentation should understand the basics of Modbus protocol. Good sources for further information:

• Wikipedia article: good read on modbus basics and addressing.
• Simplymodbus.ca: good reference as well as excellent tutorial like explanation of the protocol

Useful tools

• binaryconvert.com: tool to convert numbers between different binary presentations
• rapidscada.net Modbus parser: tool to parse Modbus requests and responses. Useful for debugging purposes when you want to understand the message sent / received.
• JSFiddle tool to test JavaScript (JS) transformations interactively

Supported Things

This binding supports 4 different things types

Thing	Type	Description
tcp	Bridge	Modbus TCP server (Modbus TCP slave)
serial	Bridge	Modbus serial slave
poller	Bridge	Thing taking care of polling the data from modbus slaves. One poller corresponds to single Modbus read request (FC01, FC02, FC03, or FC04). Is child of tcp or serial.
data	Thing	thing for converting polled data to meaningful numbers. Analogously, is responsible of converting openHAB commands to Modbus write requests. Is child of poller (read-only or read-write things) or tcp/serial (write-only things).

Typically one defines either tcp or serial bridge, depending on the variant of Modbus slave. For each Modbus read request, a poller is defined. Finally, one ore more data things are introduced to extract relevant numbers from the raw Modbus data. For write-only communication, data things can be introduced directly as children of tcp or serial bridges.

Binding Configuration

Other than the things themselves, there is no binding configuration.

Serial Port Configuration

With serial Modbus slaves, configuration of the serial port in openHAB is important. Otherwise you might encounter errors preventing all communication.

See general documentation about serial port configuration to configure the serial port correctly.

Thing Configuration

In the tables below the thing configuration parameters are grouped by thing type.

Things can be configured using Paper UI, or using a .things file. The configuration in this documentation explains the .things file, although you can find the same parameters from the Paper UI.

Note that parameter type is very critical when writing .things file yourself, since it affects how the parameter value is encoded in the text file.

Some examples:

• parameter="value" for text parameters
• parameter=4 for integer
• parameter=true for boolean

Note the differences with quoting.

Required parameters must be specified in the .things file. When optional parameters are not specified, they default to the values shown in the table below.

tcp Thing

tcp is representing a particular Modbus TCP server (slave).

Basic parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default if omitted	Description
host	text		"localhost"	IP Address or hostname
port	integer		502	Port number
id	integer		1	Slave id. Also known as station address or unit identifier.

Advanced parameters

Parameter	Required	Type	Default if omitted	Description
timeBetweenTransactionsMillis		integer	60	How long to delay we must have at minimum between two consecutive MODBUS transactions. In milliseconds.
timeBetweenReconnectMillis		integer	0	How long to wait to before trying to establish a new connection after the previous one has been disconnected. In milliseconds.
connectMaxTries		integer	1	How many times we try to establish the connection. Should be at least 1.
reconnectAfterMillis		integer	0	The connection is kept open at least the time specified here. Value of zero means that connection is disconnected after every MODBUS transaction. In milliseconds.
connectTimeoutMillis		integer	10000	The maximum time that is waited when establishing the connection. Value of zero means that system/OS default is respected. In milliseconds.
enableDiscovery		boolean	false	Enable auto-discovery feature. Effective only if a supporting extension has been installed.

Note: Advanced parameters must be equal for all tcp things sharing the same host and port.

The advanced parameters have conservative defaults, meaning that they should work for most users. In some cases when extreme performance is required (e.g. poll period below 10 ms), one might want to decrease the delay parameters, especially timeBetweenTransactionsMillis. Similarly, with some slower devices on might need to increase the values.

serial Thing

serial is representing a particular Modbus serial slave.

Basic parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default if omitted	Description
port	text	✓		Serial port to use, for example "/dev/ttyS0" or "COM1"
id	integer		1	Slave id. Also known as station address or unit identifier. See Wikipedia and simplymodbus articles for more information
baud	integer	✓		Baud of the connection. Valid values are: 75, 110, 300, 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600, 19200, 38400, 57600, 115200.
stopBits	text	✓		Stop bits. Valid values are: "1.0", "1.5", "2.0".
parity	text	✓		Parity. Valid values are: "none", "even", "odd".
dataBits	integer	✓		Data bits. Valid values are: 5, 6, 7 and 8.
encoding	text	✓		Encoding. Valid values are: "ascii", "rtu", "bin".
echo	boolean		false	Flag for setting the RS485 echo mode. This controls whether we should try to read back whatever we send on the line, before reading the response. Valid values are: true, false.

Advanced parameters

Parameter	Required	Type	Default if omitted	Description
receiveTimeoutMillis		integer	1500	Timeout for read operations. In milliseconds.
flowControlIn		text	"none"	Type of flow control for receiving. Valid values are: "none", "xon/xoff in", "rts/cts in".
flowControlOut		text	"none"	Type of flow control for sending. Valid values are: "none", "xon/xoff out", "rts/cts out".
timeBetweenTransactionsMillis		integer	35	How long to delay we must have at minimum between two consecutive MODBUS transactions. In milliseconds.
connectMaxTries		integer	1	How many times we try to establish the connection. Should be at least 1.
connectTimeoutMillis		integer	10000	The maximum time that is waited when establishing the connection. Value of zero means thatsystem/OS default is respected. In milliseconds.
enableDiscovery		boolean	false	Enable auto-discovery feature. Effective only if a supporting extension has been installed.

With the exception of id parameters should be equal for all serial things sharing the same port.

These parameters have conservative defaults, meaning that they should work for most users. In some cases when extreme performance is required (e.g. poll period below 10ms), one might want to decrease the delay parameters, especially timeBetweenTransactionsMillis. With some slower devices on might need to increase the values.

With low baud rates and/or long read requests (that is, many items polled), there might be need to increase the read timeout receiveTimeoutMillis to e.g. 5000 (=5 seconds).

poller Thing

poller thing takes care of polling the Modbus serial slave or Modbus TCP server data regularly. You must give each of your bridge Things a reference (thing ID) that is unique for this binding.

Parameter	Type	Required	Default if omitted	Description
start	integer		0	Address of the first register, coil, or discrete input to poll. Input as zero-based index number.
length	integer	✓	(-)	Number of registers, coils or discrete inputs to read.
type	text	✓	(-)	Type of modbus items to poll. This matches directly to Modbus request type or function code (FC). Valid values are: "coil" (FC01), "discrete" (FC02), "holding"(FC03), "input" (FC04).
refresh	integer		500	Poll interval in milliseconds. Use zero to disable automatic polling.
maxTries	integer		3	Maximum tries when reading. Number of tries when reading data, if some of the reading fail. For single try, enter 1.
cacheMillis	integer		50	Duration for data cache to be valid, in milliseconds. This cache is used only to serve REFRESH commands. Use zero to disable the caching.

Note: Polling can be manually triggered by sending REFRESH command to item bound to channel of data thing. When manually triggering polling, a new poll is executed as soon as possible, and sibling data things (i.e. things that share the same poller bridge) are updated. In case the poller had just received a data response or an error occurred, a cached response is used instead. See Refresh command section for more details.

data Thing

data is responsible of extracting relevant piece of data (e.g. a number 3.14) from binary received from the slave. Similarly, data thing is responsible of converting openHAB commands to write requests to the Modbus slave. n.b. note that some numerics like 'readStart' need to be entered as 'text'. You must give each of your data Things a reference (thing ID) that is unique for this binding.

Parameter	Type	Required	Default if omitted	Description
readValueType	text		(empty)	How data is read from modbus. Use empty for write-only things. Bit value type must be used with coils and discrete inputs. With registers all value types are applicable. Valid values are: "int64", "int64_swap", "uint64", "uint64_swap", "float32", "float32_swap", "int32", "int32_swap", "uint32", "uint32_swap", "int16", "uint16", "int8", "uint8", or "bit". See also Value types on read and write.
readStart	text		(empty)	Start address to start reading the value. Use empty for write-only things. Input as zero-based index number, e.g. in place of 400001 (first holding register), use the address "0". Must be between (poller start) and (poller start + poller length - 1) (inclusive). With registers and value type less than 16 bits, you must use "X.Y" format where Y specifies the sub-element to read from the 16 bit register: For example, "3.1" would mean pick second bit from register index 3 with bit value type. With int8 valuetype, it would pick the high byte of register index 3.
readTransform	text		"default"	Transformation to apply to polled data, after it has been converted to number using readValueType. Use "default" to communicate that no transformation is done and value should be passed as is. Use "SERVICENAME(ARG)" to use transformation service SERVICENAME with argument ARG. Any other value than the above types will be interpreted as static text, in which case the actual content of the polled value is ignored.
writeValueType	text		(empty)	How data is written to modbus. Only applicable to registers. Valid values are: "int64", "int64_swap", "float32", "float32_swap", "int32", "int32_swap", "int16". See also Value types on read and write.
writeStart	text		(empty)	Start address of the first holding register or coil in the write. Use empty for read-only things. Use zero based address, e.g. in place of 400001 (first holding register), use the address "0". This address is passed to data frame as is.
writeType	text		(empty)	Type of data to write. Use empty for read-only things. Valid values: "coil" or "holding". Coil uses function code (FC) FC05 or FC15. Holding register uses FC06 or FC16. See writeMultipleEvenWithSingleRegisterOrCoil parameter.
writeTransform	text		"default"	Transformation to apply to received commands. Use "default" to communicate that no transformation is done and value should be passed as is. Use "SERVICENAME(ARG)" to use transformation service SERVICENAME with argument ARG. Any other value than the above types will be interpreted as static text, in which case the actual content of the command value is ignored.
writeMultipleEvenWithSingleRegisterOrCoil	boolean		false	Controls how single register / coil of data is written. By default, or when 'false, FC06 ("Write single holding register") / FC05 ("Write single coil"). Or when 'true', using FC16 ("Write Multiple Holding Registers") / FC15 ("Write Multiple Coils").
writeMaxTries	integer		3	Maximum tries when writing Number of tries when writing data, if some of the writes fail. For single try, enter 1.
updateUnchangedValuesEveryMillis	integer		1000	Interval to update unchanged values. Modbus binding by default is not updating the item and channel state every time new data is polled from a slave, for performance reasons. Instead, the state is updated whenever it differs from previously updated state, or when enough time has passed since the last update. The time interval can be adjusted using this parameter. Use value of 0 if you like to update state with every poll, even though the value has not changed. In milliseconds.

Channels

Only the data thing has channels. It has several "data channels", serving the polled data in different formats, and for accepting openHAB commands from different item types.

Please note that transformations might be necessary in order to update some data channels, or to convert some openHAB commands to suitable Modbus data. See Transformations for more details.

Channel Type ID	Item Type	Description
number	Number	Data as number
switch	Switch	Data as switch (ON / OFF)
contact	Contact	Data as contact (OPEN / CLOSED)
dimmer	Dimmer	Data as dimmer
datetime	DateTime	Data as a date time
string	String	Data as string
rollershutter	Rollershutter	Data as roller shutter

You can send a REFRESH command to items linked to any of the above channels to ask binding to explicitly poll new data from the Modbus slave. See Refresh command section for more details.

Furthermore, there are additional channels that are useful for diagnostics:

Channel Type ID	Item Type	Description
lastReadSuccess	DateTime	Last successful read
lastReadError	DateTime	Last erroring read
lastWriteSuccess	DateTime	Last successful write
lastWriteError	DateTime	Last erroring write

Item configuration

Items are configured the typical way, using channel to bind the item to a particular channel.

For example, in the following example, item Temperature_Modbus_Livingroom is bound to channel number of thing modbus:data:siemensplc:holding:livingroom_temperature.

Number  Temperature_Modbus_Livingroom                       "Temperature Living room [%.1f °C]"           <temperature>   { channel="modbus:data:siemensplc:holding:livingroom_temperature:number" }

Make sure you bind item to a channel that is compatible, or use transformations to make it compatible. See Transformations section for more information on transformation.

autoupdate parameter with items

By default, openHAB has autoupdate enabled. This means that item state is updated according to received commands. In some situations this might have unexpected side effects with polling bindings such as Modbus - see example below.

Typically, you see something like this

1 [ome.event.ItemCommandEvent] - Item 'Kitchen_Bar_Table_Light' received command ON
2 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - Kitchen_Bar_Table_Light changed from OFF to ON
3 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - Kitchen_Bar_Table_Light changed from ON to OFF
4 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - Kitchen_Bar_Table_Light changed from OFF to ON

Let's go through it step by step

// openHAB UI switch changed command is sent
1 [ome.event.ItemCommandEvent] - Item 'Kitchen_Bar_Table_Light' received command ON
// openHAB immediately updates the item state to match the command
2 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - Kitchen_Bar_Table_Light changed from OFF to ON
// modbus binding poll completes (old value)
3 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - Kitchen_Bar_Table_Light changed from ON to OFF
// (the binding writes the command over Modbus to the slave)
// modbus binding poll completes (updated value)
4 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - Kitchen_Bar_Table_Light changed from OFF to ON

To prevent this "state fluctuation" (OFF -> ON -> OFF -> ON), some people prefer to disable autoupdate on Items used with polling bindings. With autoupdate disabled, one would get

// openHAB UI switch changed command is sent
1 [ome.event.ItemCommandEvent] - Item 'Kitchen_Bar_Table_Light' received command ON
// modbus binding poll completes (STILL the old value) -- UI not updated, still showing OFF
// (the binding writes the command over Modbus to the slave)
// modbus binding poll completes (updated value)
4 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - Kitchen_Bar_Table_Light changed from OFF to ON

Item state has no "fluctuation", it updates from OFF to ON.

To summarize (credits to rossko57's community post):

• autoupdate="false": monitor the actual state of device
• autoupdate="true": (or defaulted) allows faster display of the expected state in a sitemap

You can disable autoupdate as follows:

Number  Temperature_Modbus_Livingroom                       "Temperature Living room [%.1f °C]"           <temperature>   { channel="modbus:data:siemensplc:holding:livingroom_temperature:number", autoupdate="false" }

Main documentation on autoupdate in Items section of openHAB docs.

Discovery

Device specific modbus bindings can take part in the discovery of things, and detect devices automatically. The discovery is initiated by the tcp and serial bridges when they have enableDiscovery setting enabled.

Note that the main binding does not recognize any device, so it is pointless to turn this on unless you have the correct binding installed.

Details

Comment On Addressing

Modbus Wikipedia article summarizes this excellently:

In the traditional standard, [entity] numbers for those entities start with a digit, followed by a number of four digits in range 1–9,999:

• coils numbers start with a zero and then span from 00001 to 09999
• discrete input numbers start with a one and then span from 10001 to 19999
• input register numbers start with a three and then span from 30001 to 39999
• holding register numbers start with a four and then span from 40001 to 49999

This translates into [entity] addresses between 0 and 9,998 in data frames.

Note that entity begins counting at 1, data frame address at 0.

The openHAB modbus binding uses data frame entity addresses when referring to modbus entities. That is, the entity address configured in modbus binding is passed to modbus protocol frame as-is. For example, Modbus poller thing with start=3, length=2 and type=holding will read modbus entities with the following numbers 40004 and 40005. The manufacturer of any modbus device may choose to use either notation, you may have to infer which, or use trial and error.

Value Types On Read And Write

This section explains the detailed descriptions of different value types on read and write. Note that value types less than 16 bits are not supported on write to holding registers (see poller thing documentation for details).

See Full examples section for practical examples.

bit:

• a single bit is read from the registers
• address is given as X.Y, where Y is between 0...15 (inclusive), representing bit of the register X
• index Y=0 refers to the least significant bit
• index Y=1 refers to the second least significant bit, etc.

int8:

• a byte (8 bits) from the registers is interpreted as signed integer
• address is given as X.Y, where Y is between 0...1 (inclusive), representing byte of the register X
• index Y=0 refers to low byte
• index Y=1 refers to high byte
• it is assumed that each high and low byte is encoded in most significant bit first order

uint8:

• same as int8 except value is interpreted as unsigned integer

int16:

• register with index is interpreted as 16 bit signed integer.
• it is assumed that register is encoded in most significant bit first order

uint16:

• same as int16 except value is interpreted as unsigned integer

int32:

• registers index and (index + 1) are interpreted as signed 32bit integer
• it assumed that the first register contains the most significant 16 bits
• it is assumed that each register is encoded in most significant bit first order

uint32:

• same as int32 except value is interpreted as unsigned integer

float32:

• registers index and (index + 1) are interpreted as signed 32bit floating point number
• it assumed that the first register contains the most significant 16 bits
• it is assumed that each register is encoded in most significant bit first order

int64:

• registers index, (index + 1), (index + 2), (index + 3) are interpreted as signed 64bit integer.
• it assumed that the first register contains the most significant 16 bits
• it is assumed that each register is encoded in most significant bit first order

uint64:

• same as int64 except value is interpreted as unsigned integer

The MODBUS specification defines each 16bit word to be encoded as Big Endian, but there is no specification on the order of those words within 32bit or larger data types. The net result is that when you have a master and slave that operate with the same Endian mode things work fine, but add a device with a different Endian mode and it is very hard to correct. To resolve this the binding supports a second set of valuetypes that have the words swapped.

If you get strange values using the int32, uint32, float32, int64, or uint64 valuetypes then just try the int32_swap, uint32_swap, float32_swap, int64_swap, or uint64_swap valuetype, depending upon what your data type is.

int32_swap:

• registers index and (index + 1) are interpreted as signed 32bit integer
• it assumed that the first register contains the least significant 16 bits
• it is assumed that each register is encoded in most significant bit first order (Big Endian)

uint32_swap:

• same as int32_swap except value is interpreted as unsigned integer

float32_swap:

• registers index and (index + 1) are interpreted as signed 32bit floating point number
• it assumed that the first register contains the least significant 16 bits
• it is assumed that each register is encoded in most significant bit first order (Big Endian)

int64_swap:

• same as int64 but registers swapped, that is, registers (index + 3), (index + 2), (index + 1), (index + 1) are interpreted as signed 64bit integer

uint64_swap:

• same as uint64 except value is interpreted as unsigned integer

REFRESH Command

REFRESH command to item bound to any data channel makes poller thing to poll new from the Modbus slave. All data channels of children data things are refreshed per the normal logic.

REFRESH can be useful tool if you like to refresh only on demand (poller has refresh disabled, i.e. refresh=0), or have custom logic of refreshing only in some special cases.

Note that poller has cacheMillis parameter to re-use previously received data, and thus avoid polling the Modbus slave too much. This parameter is specifically limiting the flood of requests that come when openHAB itself is calling REFRESH for new things.

Read Steps

Every time data is read by the binding, these steps are taken to convert the raw binary data to actual item State in openHAB:

1. Poll the data from Modbus slave. Data received is stored in list of bits (discrete inputs and coils), or in list of registers (input registers and holding registers)
2. Extract a single number from the polled data, using specified location readStart and number "value type" readValueType. As an example, we can tell the binding to extract 32-bit float (readValueType="float32") from register index readStart="105".
3. Number is converted to string (e.g. "3.14") and passed as input to the transformation. Note that in case readTransform="default", a default transformation provided by the binding is used. See Transformations section for more details.
4. For each data channel, we try to convert the transformation output of previous step to a State type (e.g. ON/OFF, or DecimalType) accepted by the channel. If all the conversions fail (e.g. trying to convert ON to a number), the data channel is not updated.

In case of read errors, all data channels are left unchanged, and lastReadError channel is updated with current time. Examples of errors include connection errors, IO errors on read, and explicit exception responses from the slave.

Note: there is a performance optimization that channel state is only updated when enough time has passed since last update, or when the state differs from previous update. See updateUnchangedValuesEveryMillis parameter in data thing.

Write Steps

Basic Case

Commands passed to openHAB items that are bound to a data channel are most often processed according to following steps:

1. Command is sent to openHAB item, that is bound to a data channel. Command must be such that it is accepted by the item in the first place
2. Command is converted to string (e.g. "3.14") and passed to the transformation. Note that in case readTransform="default", a default transformation provided by the binding is used. See Transformations section for more details.
3. We try to convert transformation output to number (DecimalType), OPEN/CLOSED (OpenClosedType), and ON/OFF (OnOffType); in this order. First successful conversion is stored. For example, "3.14" would convert to number (DecimalType), while "CLOSED" would convert to CLOSED (of OpenClosedType).' In case all conversions fail, the command is discarded and nothing is written to the Modbus slave.
4. Next step depends on the writeType:
   • writeType="coil": the command from the transformation is converted to boolean. Non-zero numbers, ON, and OPEN are considered true; and rest as false.
   • writeType="holding": First, the command from the transformation is converted 1/0 number in case of OPEN/ON or CLOSED/OFF. The number is converted to one or more registers using writeValueType. For example, number 3.14 would be converted to two registers when writeValueType="float32": [0x4048, 0xF5C3].
5. Boolean (writeType="coil") or registers (writeType="holding") are written to the Modbus slave using FC05, FC06, FC15, or FC16, depending on the value of writeMultipleEvenWithSingleRegisterOrCoil. Write address is specified by writeStart.

Advanced Write Using JSON

There are some more advanced use cases which need more control how the command is converted to set of bits or requests. Due to this reason, one can return a special JSON output from the transformation (step 3). The JSON directly specifies the write requests to send to Modbus slave. In this case, steps 4. and 5. are skipped.

For example, if the transformation returns the following JSON

[
    {
        "functionCode": 16,
        "address": 5412,
        "value": [1, 0, 5]
    },
    {
        "functionCode": 6,
        "address": 555,
        "value": [3],
        "maxTries": 10
    }
]

Two write requests would be sent to the Modbus slave

1. FC16 (write multiple holding register), with start address 5412, having three registers of data (1, 0, and 5).
2. FC06 (write single holding register), with start address 555, and single register of data (3). Write is tried maximum of 10 times in case some of the writes fail.

The JSON transformation output can be useful when you need full control how the write goes, for example in case where the write address depends on the incoming command. Actually, you can omit specifying writeStart, writeValueType and writeType with JSON transformation output altogether.

Empty JSON array ([]) can be used to suppress all writes.

Explanation for the different properties of the JSON object in the array.

Key name	Value type	Required	Default if omitted	Description
functionCode	number	✓	(-)	Modbus function code to use with write. Use one of 5, 6, 15 or 16.
address	number	✓	(-)	Start address of the first holding register or coil in the write. Use empty for read-only things. Use zero based address, e.g. in place of 400001 (first holding register), use the address 0. This address is passed to data frame as is.
value	JSON array of numbers	✓	(-)	Array of coil or register values. Encode coil values as 0 or 1.
maxTries	number		3	Number of tries when writing data, in case some of the writes fail. Should be at least 1.

Transformations

Transformations serve two purpose

• readTransform: doing preprocessing transformations to read binary data and to make it more usable in openHAB
• writeTransform: doing preprocessing to openHAB commands before writing them to Modbus slave

Note that transformation is only one part of the overall process how polled data is converted to openHAB state, or how commands are converted to Modbus writes. Consult Read steps and Write steps for more details. Specifically, note that you might not need transformations at all in some uses cases.

Please also note that you should install relevant transformations in openHAB as necessary. For example, openhab-transformation-javascript feature provides the javascript (JS) transformation.

Transform On Read

readTransform can be used to transform the polled data, after a number is extracted from the polled data using readValueType and readStart (consult Read steps).

There are three different format to specify the configuration:

1. String "default", in which case the default transformation is used. The default is to convert non-zero numbers to ON/OPEN, and zero numbers to OFF/CLOSED, respectively. If the item linked to the data channel does not accept these states, the number is converted to best-effort-basis to the states accepted by the item. For example, the extracted number is passed as-is for Number items, while ON/OFF would be used with DimmerItem.
2. "SERVICENAME(ARG)" for calling a transformation service. The transformation receives the extracted number as input. This is useful for example scaling (divide by x) the polled data before it is used in openHAB. See examples for more details.
3. Any other value is interpreted as static text, in which case the actual content of the polled value is ignored. Transformation result is always the same. The transformation output is converted to best-effort-basis to the states accepted by the item.

Consult background documentation on items to understand accepted data types (state) by each item.

Transform On Write

writeTransform can be used to transform the openHAB command before it is converted to actual binary data (see Write steps).

There are three different format to specify the configuration:

1. String "default", in which case the default transformation is used. The default is to do no conversion to the command.
2. "SERVICENAME(ARG)" for calling a transformation service. The transformation receives the command as input. This is useful for example scaling ("multiply by x") commands before the data is written to Modbus. See examples for more details.
3. Any other value is interpreted as static text, in which case the actual command is ignored. Transformation result is always the same.

Transformation Example: Scaling

Typical use case for transformations is scaling of numbers. The data in Modbus slaves is quite commonly encoded as integers, and thus scaling is necessary to convert them to useful float numbers.

transform/multiply10.js:

// Wrap everything in a function (no global variable pollution)
// variable "input" contains data passed by openHAB
(function(inputData) {
    // on read: the polled number as string
    // on write: openHAB command as string
    var MULTIPLY_BY = 10;
    return Math.round(parseFloat(inputData, 10) * MULTIPLY_BY);
})(input)

transform/divide10.js:

// Wrap everything in a function (no global variable pollution)
// variable "input" contains data passed by openHAB
(function(inputData) {
    // on read: the polled number as string
    // on write: openHAB command as string
    var DIVIDE_BY = 10;
    return parseFloat(inputData) / DIVIDE_BY;
})(input)

See Scaling example for full example with things, items and a sitemap.

Example: Inverting Binary Data On Read And Write

This example transformation is able to invert "boolean" input. In this case, boolean input is considered to be either number 0/1, ON/OFF, or OPEN/CLOSED.

// function to invert Modbus binary states
// variable "input" contains data passed by openHAB
(function(inputData) {
    var out = inputData ;      // allow UNDEF to pass through
    if (inputData == '1' || inputData == 'ON' || inputData == 'OPEN') {
        out = '0' ;  // change to OFF or OPEN depending on your Item type
    } else if (inputData == '0' || inputData == 'OFF' || inputData == 'CLOSED') {
        out = '1' ;
    }
    return out ;      // return a string
})(input)

Full Examples

Things can be configured via the Paper UI, or using a things file like here.

Basic Example

This example reads different kind of Modbus items from the slave.

Please refer to the comments for more explanations.

things/modbus_ex1.things:

Bridge modbus:tcp:localhostTCP [ host="127.0.0.1", port=502, id=2 ] {

    // read-write for coils. Reading 4 coils, with index 4, and 5.
    // These correspond to input register numbers 000005, and 000005
    Bridge poller coils [ start=4, length=2, refresh=1000, type="coil" ] {
        // Note the zero based indexing: first coil is index 0.
        Thing data do4 [ readStart="4", readValueType="bit", writeStart="4", writeValueType="bit", writeType="coil" ]
        Thing data do5 [ readStart="5", readValueType="bit", writeStart="5", writeValueType="bit", writeType="coil" ]
    }
    // read-write for holding registers. Reading 4 registers, with index 1500, 1501, 1502, 1503.
    // These correspond to holding register numbers 401501, 401502, 401503, 401504.
    Bridge poller holding [ start=1500, length=4, refresh=1000, type="holding" ] {
        Thing data holding1500 [ readStart="1500", readValueType="float32", writeStart="1500", writeValueType="float32", writeType="holding" ]
        Thing data holding1502 [ readStart="1502", readValueType="float32", writeStart="1502", writeValueType="float32", writeType="holding" ]
    }
    // read-only for input registers. Reading 4 registers, with index 1500, 1501, 1502, 1503.
    // These correspond to input register numbers 301501, 301502, 301503, 301504.
    Bridge poller inputRegisters [ start=1500, length=4, refresh=1000, type="input" ] {
        Thing data input1500 [ readStart="1500", readValueType="float32" ]
        Thing data input1502 [ readStart="1502", readValueType="float32" ]

        // Extract high or low byte of the 16-bit register as unsigned 8-bit integer (uint8)
        Thing data input1502lo [ readStart="1502.0", readValueType="uint8" ]
        Thing data input1502hi [ readStart="1502.1", readValueType="uint8" ]

        // Extract individual bits of the 16-bit register
        // bit 0 is the least significant bit, and bit 15 is the most significant bit
        Thing data input1502bit0 [ readStart="1502.0", readValueType="bit" ]
        Thing data input1502bit1 [ readStart="1502.1", readValueType="bit" ]
        Thing data input1502bit2 [ readStart="1502.2", readValueType="bit" ]
    }

    // read-only for discrete inputs. Reading 4 discrete inputs, with index 1200, 1201, 1202, 1203.
    // These correspond to input register numbers 101201, 101202, 101203, 101204.
    Bridge poller discreteInputs [ start=1200, length=4, refresh=1000, type="discrete" ] {
        Thing data di1200 [ readStart="1200", readValueType="bit" ]
        Thing data di1201 [ readStart="1201", readValueType="bit" ]
    }

    // Write-only entry: thing is child of tcp directly. No readStart etc. need to be defined.
    // Note that the openHAB state might differ from the physical slave since it is not refreshed at all
    Thing data holding5write [ writeStart="5", writeValueType="int16", writeType="holding" ]
}

items/modbus_ex1.items:

Switch DO4            "Digital Output index 4 [%d]"    { channel="modbus:data:localhostTCP:coils:do4:switch" }
Switch DO5            "Digital Output index 5 [%d]"    { channel="modbus:data:localhostTCP:coils:do5:switch" }

Contact DI1200            "Digital Input index 1200 [%d]"    { channel="modbus:data:localhostTCP:discreteInputs:di1200:contact" }
Contact DI1201            "Digital Input index 1201 [%d]"    { channel="modbus:data:localhostTCP:discreteInputs:di1201:contact" }

Number Input1500Float32            "Input registers 1500-1501 as float32 [%.1f]"    { channel="modbus:data:localhostTCP:inputRegisters:input1500:number" }
Number Input1502Float32            "Input registers 1502-1503 as float32 [%.1f]"    { channel="modbus:data:localhostTCP:inputRegisters:input1502:number" }

DateTime Input1502Float32LastOKRead            "Input registers 1502-1503 last read [%1$tA, %1$td.%1$tm.%1$tY %1$tH:%1$tM:%1$tS]"    { channel="modbus:data:localhostTCP:inputRegisters:input1502:lastReadSuccess" }
DateTime Input1502Float32LastBadRead            "Input registers 1502-1503 last read [%1$tA, %1$td.%1$tm.%1$tY %1$tH:%1$tM:%1$tS]"    { channel="modbus:data:localhostTCP:inputRegisters:input1502:lastReadError" }

Number Holding5writeonly            "Holding index 5 [%.1f]"    { channel="modbus:data:localhostTCP:holding5write:number" }

sitemaps/modbus_ex1.sitemap:

sitemap modbus_ex1 label="modbus_ex1"
{
    Frame {
        Switch item=DO4
        Switch item=DO5
        Setpoint item=Holding5writeonly minValue=0 maxValue=100 step=20

        Default item=DI1200
        Default item=DI1201

        Default item=Input1500Float32
        Default item=Input1502Float32

        Default item=Input1500Float32LastOKRead
        Default item=Input1500Float32LastBadRead

    }
}

Writing To Different Address And Type Than Read

This updates the item from discrete input index 4, and writes commands to coil 5. This can be useful when the discrete input is the measurement (e.g. "is valve open?"), and the command is the control (e.g. "open/close valve").

The sitemap shows the current coil status. It also has switches to set/reset coil status, for debugging purposes. Toggling these switches always have the same effect: either setting or resetting the bit.

things/modbus_ex2.things:

Bridge modbus:tcp:localhostTCPex2 [ host="127.0.0.1", port=502 ] {

    Bridge poller items [ start=4, length=2, refresh=1000, type="discrete" ] {
        // read from index 4, write to coil 5
        Thing data readDiscrete4WriteCoil5 [ readStart="4", readValueType="bit", writeStart="5", writeValueType="bit", writeType="coil" ]
        Thing data resetCoil5 [ writeTransform="0", writeStart="5", writeValueType="bit", writeType="coil" ]
        Thing data setCoil5 [ writeTransform="1", writeStart="5", writeValueType="bit", writeType="coil" ]
    }

    Bridge poller coils [ start=5, length=1, refresh=500, type="coil" ] {
        Thing data index5 [ readStart="5", readValueType="bit" ]
    }
}

items/modbus_ex2.items:

Switch ReadDI4WriteDO5            "Coil 4/5 mix [%d]"    { channel="modbus:data:localhostTCPex2:items:readDiscrete4WriteCoil5:switch" }
Switch ResetDO5            "Flip to turn Coil 5 OFF [%d]"    { channel="modbus:data:localhostTCPex2:items:resetCoil5:switch" }
Switch SetDO5            "Flip to turn Coil 5 ON [%d]"    { channel="modbus:data:localhostTCPex2:items:setCoil5:switch" }
Contact Coil5            "Coil 5 [%d]"    { channel="modbus:data:localhostTCPex2:coils:index5:contact" }

sitemaps/modbus_ex2.sitemap:

sitemap modbus_ex2 label="modbus_ex2"
{
    Frame {
        Switch item=ReadDI4WriteDO5
        Switch item=ResetDO5
        Switch item=SetDO5
        Text item=Coil5
    }
}

Scaling Example

This example divides value on read, and multiplies them on write, using JS transforms.

things/modbus_ex_scaling.things:

Bridge modbus:tcp:localhostTCP3 [ host="127.0.0.1", port=502 ] {
    Bridge poller holdingPoller [ start=5, length=1, refresh=5000, type="holding" ] {
        Thing data holding5Scaled [ readStart="5", readValueType="int16", readTransform="JS(divide10.js)", writeStart="5", writeValueType="int16", writeType="holding", writeTransform="JS(multiply10.js)" ]
    }
}

items/modbus_ex_scaling.items:

Number Holding5Scaled            "Holding index 5 scaled [%.1f]"   { channel="modbus:data:localhostTCP3:holdingPoller:holding5Scaled:number" }

sitemaps/modbus_ex_scaling.sitemap:

sitemap modbus_ex_scaling label="modbus_ex_scaling"
{
    Frame {
        Text item=Holding5Scaled
        Setpoint item=Holding5Scaled minValue=0 maxValue=100 step=20
    }
}

See transformation example for the divide10.js and multiply10.js.

Dimmer Example

Dimmer type Items are not a straightforward match to Modbus registers, as they feature a numeric value which is limited to 0-100 Percent, as well as handling ON/OFF commands.

Transforms can be used to match and scale both reading and writing.

Example for a dimmer device where 255 register value = 100% for fully ON:

things/modbus_ex_dimmer.things:

Bridge modbus:tcp:remoteTCP [ host="192.168.0.10", port=502 ]  {
   Bridge poller MBDimmer [ start=4700, length=2, refresh=1000, type="holding" ]  {
	         Thing data DimmerReg [ readStart="4700", readValueType="uint16", readTransform="JS(dimread255.js)", writeStart="4700", writeValueType="uint16", writeType="holding", writeTransform="JS(dimwrite255.js)" ]
   }
}

items/modbus_ex_dimmer.items:

Dimmer myDimmer "My Dimmer d2 [%.1f]"   { channel="modbus:data:remoteTCP:MBDimmer:DimmerReg:dimmer" }

sitemaps/modbus_ex_dimmer.sitemap:

sitemap modbus_ex_dimmer label="modbus_ex_dimmer"
{
    Frame {
        Switch item=myDimmer
        Slider item=myDimmer
    }
}

transform/dimread255.js:

// Wrap everything in a function (no global variable pollution)
// variable "input" contains data string passed by binding
(function(inputData) {
    // here set the 100% equivalent register value
    var MAX_SCALE = 255;
    // convert to percent
    return Math.round( parseFloat(inputData, 10) * 100 / MAX_SCALE );
})(input)

transform/dimwrite255.js:

// variable "input" contains command string passed by openHAB
(function(inputData) {
    // here set the 100% equivalent register value
    var MAX_SCALE = 255;
    var out = 0
    if (inputData == 'ON') {
          // set max
         out = MAX_SCALE
    } else if (inputData == 'OFF') {
         out = 0
    } else {
         // scale from percent
         out = Math.round( parseFloat(inputData, 10) * MAX_SCALE / 100 )
    }
    return out
})(input)

Rollershutter Example

Rollershutter

This is an example how different Rollershutter commands can be written to Modbus.

Roller shutter position is read from register 0, UP/DOWN commands are written to register 1, and MOVE/STOP commands are written to register 2.

The logic of processing commands are summarized in the table

Command	Number written to Modbus slave	Register index
UP	1	1
DOWN	-1	1
MOVE	1	2
STOP	0	2

things/modbus_ex_rollershutter.things:

Bridge modbus:tcp:localhostTCPRollerShutter [ host="127.0.0.1", port=502 ] {
    Bridge poller holding [ start=0, length=3, refresh=1000, type="holding" ] {
        // Since we are using advanced transformation outputting JSON,
        // other write parameters (writeValueType, writeStart, writeType) can be omitted
        Thing data rollershutterData [ readStart="0", readValueType="int16", writeTransform="JS(rollershutter.js)" ]

        // For diagnostics
        Thing data rollershutterDebug0 [ readStart="0", readValueType="int16", writeStart="0", writeValueType="int16", writeType="holding" ]
        Thing data rollershutterDebug1 [ readStart="1", readValueType="int16" ]
        Thing data rollershutterDebug2 [ readStart="2", readValueType="int16" ]
    }
}

items/modbus_ex_rollershutter.items:

// We disable auto-update to make sure that rollershutter position is updated from the slave, not "automatically" via commands
Rollershutter RollershutterItem "Roller shutter position [%.1f]" <temperature> { autoupdate="false", channel="modbus:data:localhostTCPRollerShutter:holding:rollershutterData:rollershutter" }

// For diagnostics
Number RollershutterItemDebug0 "Roller shutter Debug 0 [%d]" <temperature> { channel="modbus:data:localhostTCPRollerShutter:holding:rollershutterDebug0:number" }
Number RollershutterItemDebug1 "Roller shutter Debug 1 [%d]" <temperature> { channel="modbus:data:localhostTCPRollerShutter:holding:rollershutterDebug1:number" }
Number RollershutterItemDebug2 "Roller shutter Debug 2 [%d]" <temperature> { channel="modbus:data:localhostTCPRollerShutter:holding:rollershutterDebug2:number" }

sitemaps/modbus_ex_rollershutter.sitemap:

sitemap modbus_ex_rollershutter label="modbus_ex_rollershutter" {
    Switch item=RollershutterItem label="Roller shutter [(%d)]" mappings=[UP="up", STOP="X", DOWN="down", MOVE="move"]

    // For diagnostics
    Setpoint item=RollershutterItemDebug0 minValue=0 maxValue=100 step=20
    Text item=RollershutterItemDebug0
    Text item=RollershutterItemDebug1
    Text item=RollershutterItemDebug2
}

transform/rollershutter.js:

// Wrap everything in a function
// variable "input" contains data passed by openHAB
(function(cmd) {
    var cmdToValue = {"UP": 1,  "DOWN": -1, "MOVE": 1, "STOP": 0};
    var cmdToAddress = {"UP": 1, "DOWN": 1, "MOVE": 2, "STOP": 2};

    var value = cmdToValue[cmd];
    var address = cmdToAddress[cmd];
    if(value === undefined || address === undefined) {
        // unknown command, do not write anything
        return "[]";
    } else {
        return (
            "["
              + "{\"functionCode\": 6, \"address\":" + address.toString() + ", \"value\": [" + value +  "] }"
            + "]"
        );
    }
})(input)

Eager Updates Using REFRESH

In many cases fast enough poll interval is pretty long, e.g. 1 second. This is problematic in cases when faster updates are wanted based on events in openHAB.

For example, in some cases it is useful to update faster when a command is sent to some specific items.

Simple solution is just increase the poll period with the associated performance penalties and possible burden to the slave device.

It is also possible to use REFRESH command to ask the binding to update more frequently for a short while.

rules/fast_refresh.rules:

import org.eclipse.xtext.xbase.lib.Procedures
import org.eclipse.smarthome.core.types.RefreshType

val Procedures$Procedure0 refreshData = [ |
    // Refresh SetTemperature. In fact, all data things in the same poller are refreshed
    SetTemperature.sendCommand(RefreshType.REFRESH)
    return null
]

rule "Refresh modbus data quickly after changing settings"
when
    Item VacationMode received command or
    Item HeatingEnabled received command
then
    if (receivedCommand != RefreshType.REFRESH) {
        // Update more frequently for a short while, to get
        // refereshed data after the newly received command
        refreshData()
        createTimer(now.plus(100), refreshData)
        createTimer(now.plus(200), refreshData)
        createTimer(now.plus(300), refreshData)
        createTimer(now.plus(500), refreshData)
    }
end

Please be aware that REFRESH commands are "throttled" (to be exact, responses are cached) with poller parameter cacheMillis.

Changes From Modbus 1.x Binding

The openHAB 1 Modbus binding is quite different from the openHAB 2 binding. The biggest difference is that the openHAB 2 binding uses things which can be configured using Paper UI.

Unfortunately there is no conversion tool to convert old configurations to new thing structure.

Due to the introduction of things, the configuration was bound to be backwards incompatible. This offered opportunity to simplify some aspects of configuration. The major differences are configuration logic are:

Absolute Addresses Instead Of Relative

The new Modbus binding uses absolute addresses. This means that all parameters referring to addresses of input registers, holding registers, discrete inputs or coils are entity addresses. This means that the addresses start from zero (first entity), and can go up to 65 535. See Wikipedia explanation for more information.

Previous binding sometimes used absolute addresses (modbus.cfg), sometimes relative to polled data (items configuration).

Register And Bit Addressing

Now 32 bit value types refer start register address. For example valueType="int32" with start="3" refers to 32 bit integer in registers 3 and 4.

The old binding could not handle this case at all since it was assumed that the values were addressed differently. Read index of 3 would refer to 32 bit integer in registers 3*2=6 and 3*2+1=7. It was not possible to refer to 32 bit type starting at odd index.

It is still not possible to read 32 bit value type starting "middle" of register. However, if such need arises the addressing syntax is extensible to covert these cases.

Bits, and other <16 bit value types, inside registers are addressed using start="X.Y" convention. This is more explicit notation hopefully reduces the risk of misinterpretation.

Polling Details

The new binding polls data in parallel which means that errors with one slave do not necessarily slow down polling with some other slave.

Furthermore, once can disable polling altogether and trigger polling on-demand using REFRESH.

Transformation Changes

With the new binding the transformations get slightly different input. In polling, the transformation always receives number as input (see Read steps). Old binding had converted the input based on item type.

Trigger Removed

The old binding had trigger parameter in item configuration to react only to some openHAB commands, or to some polled states. There is no trigger anymore but one can use transformations to accomplish the same thing. See Transformations for examples.

Support For 32, 64 Bit Value Types In Writing

The new binding supports 32 and 64 bit values types when writing.

Troubleshooting

Thing Status

Check thing status for errors in configuration or communication.

Enable Verbose Logging

Enable DEBUG or TRACE (even more verbose) logging for the loggers named:

• org.openhab.binding.zmartmodbus

Consult openHAB logging documentation for more information.

For Developers

This binding can be extended in many ways and adapted support more devices