Clever naming of entities

Configuration
1

I am think about changing the names to make better use of Siri an HomeKit. But I am not sure if my thinking is correct.

Let’s assume the following situation:
I have a light an air purifier and a switch in a room called kitchen.

Right now my naming looks like that:

  • Kitchen Light
  • Kitchen Air Purifier
  • Kitchen Switch

Siri, however doesn’t need that, because she already knows the devices are in the kitchen. So I would change it to this:

  • Light
  • Air Purifier
  • Switch

And of course for every other room the same generic naming.

In HA the devices are also tied to their rooms and have a unique_id.

What are your thoughts about that?

2

My thoughts are- is there a question?

I have never touched an Apple device and know even less about Siri, but my Alexa system knows “Kitchen Light”, “Patio Light”, Garage Light", etc.

3

Well there is. Siri can handle this as well, but she has issues in the response being grammatically awkward. Also I think sometimes she doesn’t understand it that well either.

“Licht Küche ein”
responds
“Die Licht Küche ist an” :-1:

“Licht Küche ein”
responds (if the light ist renamed to “Licht”)
“OK, das Licht ist an” :+1:

In short it should just be one word not a combination. Whether it is light or table doesn’t matter.

But I also realized that in HA it is better to have the room in the name. Also if setting up HomeKit it is easier to identify, even though the serial number is the unique_id.
I guess I will just rename it in HomeKit and leave HA naming as it is.

Before doing that and realizing it was the wrong way, I want to collect some experience.

4

Probably not a great idea if you are talking about the name. It is going to be very difficult to select the device you want when using the UI to construct automations as only the name is shown. So are you selecting the light in the kitchen or another room?

And it is a terrible idea if you are talking about changing the entity id. The area is not shown when you are selecting entities for service calls in automations and scripts.

Also entity ids must be unique. So you cant call entities in other rooms by the same object id.

1 Like
5

This is exactly what I did, since 99% of our interactions with HA are via Siri on our Apple Watches. The shorter the spoken command, the less likely that Siri will understand all of the words and not mess one up. “Turn off back foyer power pet door inside sensor” is waaaaaay too long…and prone to confusion between sensor and center…

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6

Light was a bad name choice. If I say Lights off, she asks which room. Otherwise she would switch off the lights in the room (HomePod).

So probably kitchen would be a better name than light. But his doesn’t work if there is a room with that name. :see_no_evil:

7

You could also name it “Fred” or “George”, etc.

If there were a way for Home Assistant to know which device the command came from, I.E. from the Kitchen I say “Alexa, turn on the light”, and the command came from the Alexa device in the kitchen, then the kitchen light gets turned off. But, that would be a problem. What if I am in the family room and want to turn the kitchen light off,. but the nearest Alexa device is in the Family Room?

8

I think there is. Can you put your alexa devices in an area?

If so you could use the area_id.

9

That wouldn’t do me any good since I have Alexa devices in every room, my car, and my glasses are Alexa Frames. Areas would be ambiguous.

10

Can’t do anything about the frames (I didn’t even know they existed) but the ones in the rooms / car can each control devices in the same room / car using area_id.