On May 20, 2017, the openHAB Foundation organised its first own event, the Smart Home Day (opens new window) in Darmstadt at the local University of Applied Sciences (opens new window), which was co-located with the first annual assembly of the openHAB Foundation members.

The Smart Home Day was a great get-together of around 50 smart home enthusiasts. For many it was the first time to meet people in person after having known their Github identities for years already and to engage in interesting discussions around open source and smart homes.

A special thanks to Christoph Engelbert (opens new window) who led through the program as a moderator.

Prof. Dr. Zahout-Heil and Prof. Dr. Jeromin of the University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt

The day started with a warm welcome by the prodekan Prof. Dr. Carsten Zahout-Heil (opens new window), followed by an inspiring talk from Prof. Dr. Ingo Jeromin about the challenging future of energy supply. I followed up on this with my very personal experience about the smart meter rollout in Germany and showed the potentials of openHAB for energy-related use cases.

The afternoon was all around the benefits of open source engagement. While I outlined the general opportunities for companies when investing in open source software, we had several member companies talking about their own motivation for supporting the foundation and contributing to openHAB. Even to me this was quite impressive to see how heterogeneous the projects and activities are and it gave valuable insights into the possibilities of openHAB.

Presentations by openHAB Foundation members

You can get some impressions of the event through the following links:

• Article in the Darmstädter Echo (opens new window) (local newspaper)
• Slides of the Welcome and Introduction (opens new window)
• Slides about the Future of Energy Supply
• Slides of the talk about Energy & openHAB (opens new window)
• Slides on Why Open Source Matters (opens new window)
• Slides of the presentation from QAware
• Slides of the presentation from Musala Soft
• Slides of the presentation from Venture Services Seeheim

Thanks to everyone who has attended. After all the positive feedback, I am sure that we will do a similar event next year again!

Pictures of the event are available on Google Photos