Best way to configure multiple iOS devices?

Configuration
1

Hi there!

I’m new to home automation and really looking forward to this.

I’ve played around with my configuration file a little, but would like to clean it up.

First things first - I my iphone appears twice for some reason. I think it’s because one was a web login [1] (by connecting to my rPi’s ip address directly), and the other is through the app [2]. It looks like the app works better and keeps track of the battery. Is there any way to remove [1], or at least hide it in the config file?

Secondly, I’ve taken a look at the example config files but I’m still a little confused.

When you add a platform in ‘configuration.yaml’, is that a configuration for all those types of devices? For example, there’s now an ‘ios:’ line in the config file - does this mean I can now add my iPad and my family’s phones too?

2

I started yesterday with HA and realised its far easier to start branching out the configurations files

so what I did eg, all my lights are in a seperate file

in the configurations.yaml I have this:
light: !include lights.yaml

I have created a lights.yaml in the same folder as the configurations file that only contains lights - makes it neater from my perspective

then you just start off with the definition within the configuration file itself, here is an example:

 - platform: mqtt
       name: "Hall Main Light"
       state_topic: "smartthings/Hall - Main Bulb/switch"
       command_topic: "smartthings/Hall - Main Bulb/switch"
       brightness_state_topic: "smartthings/Hall - Main Bulb/level"
       brightness_command_topic: "smartthings/Hall - Main Bulb/level"
       command_on_template: "on,{{ brightness|d }},{{ red|d }}-{{ green|d }}-{{ blue|d }}"
       command_off_template: "off"
       state_template: "{{ value.split(',')[0] }}"  # must return `on` or `off`
       brightness_template: "{{ value.split(',')[1] }}"
       red_template: "{{ value.split(',')[2].split('-')[0] }}"
       green_template: "{{ value.split(',')[2].split('-')[1] }}"
       blue_template: "{{ value.split(',')[2].split('-')[2] }}"
       payload_on: "on"
       payload_off: "off"
       optimistic: false
       qos: 0
       brightness_scale: 99

then you just add the next component underneath it … also ways starting with your defintion, pretty much copy/ paste change your names etc …

so you can add multiple devices of the same type under the same configuration which I believe answers your question?

3

Ah right, okay.

So I define each new component as a new platform.

This answers that question, but I’m still not sure how to remove the duplicate iOS device.

I guess more specifically I’m wondering what best practice is for adding iOS devices. I’ve tried adding them via their mac address but it doesn’t seem to be working - do I need to actually install the HA app on each device?

4

sorry cant help with this one - documentation isnt very good on this one I am afraid as you can see here https://home-assistant.io/docs/ecosystem/ios/