oBIX is a new standard for representing and accessing building automation data via Web services.

In 2006, a mapping between the KNX and oBIX data models was developed at the A-Lab. It allows access to a system that follows the KNX protocol standard to be faithfully represented by way of oBIX entities. In addition, the extensible nature of the oBIX data model is leveraged to express the required KNX–oBIX mapping information as well. This makes the gateway configuration inherently portable and self-documenting.

The project also included the implementation of a proof-of-concept gateway server. Read and write access to KNX/EIB group objects via oBIX were demonstrated live at the 2006 KNX Scientific Conference. However, in its current state, the server implements only a part of the data model mapping, supports only elementary oBIX services, and uses the plain HTTP oBIX protocol binding. Configuration data has to be supplied manually.

The implementation uses Java and accesses the KNX network via EIBnet/IP Tunnelling. It is based on the oBIX toolkit, version 0.12.0, and the Calimero library, version 1.3.

The full server source code is available for download, WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY of any kind. Please note that it is copyrighted.

More information

Web services in building automation: Mapping KNX to oBIX, paper presented at the 5th IEEE Intl. Conference on Industrial Informatics, 2007, Vienna.

Presentation given at the KNX Scientific Conference 2006, Vienna.

This project contains interesting aspects beyond what can be covered here (or in the above references). If you are interested in further details (e.g., concerning the mapping or the server implementation), please feel free to contact us!