Introduction
ConnectorIO® Add-ons allow plugging typical industrial protocols and hardware into openHAB®. openHAB® is compact project which, once properly installed and configured, can be used as IoT gateway. With ConnectorIO® Add-ons it will gather connectivity abilities typical for these.
Concepts
This documentation describes mainly how to configure industrial integrations supplied by ConnectorIO sp. z o.o.. In order to fully understand, "how" various assets are organized in openHAB®, you need to learn some basic terms.
Main concepts which are used in openHAB® are:
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Bridges - usually represents a connection or complex element which can have things. Be aware, that bridge can be a child of another bridge too.
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Things - representation of a given functionality, typically representing a piece of hardware or software function. Main responsibility of this element is to group operations of certain asset in one place.
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Channels - each thing might have 0 or more channels which are inputs or outputs, generally speaking functions. A channel represents a single, atomic value or switch which can be controlled or retrieved. One channel can have 0 or more linked items.
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Items - items are elements which are created for visualisation and/or persistence purposes. Since one "thing" can have multiple "channels" the item allows selecting which channels of a device to track.
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Links - is a relation between item and channel. For each item-channel pair there is exactly one link.
Keep in mind above definitions because they will be referred in this documentation. Bindings provided by ConnectorIO sp. z o.o. give possibility to create bridges and things which do represent industrial hardware. First three elements - Bridges, Things, Channels - are defined by shipped integration software. Last three - Channels, Items and Links - might heavily depend on user configuration. Especially items and its organization is duty of the end user.
If you still look for additional explanation please read more about concepts used in openHAB.