Confused on how to configure Areas

Configuration
90

I recommend starting a new post with ‘hass-cli’ in the title. You’re going to get very few hits with this post. You should also place the post in the developers section of the forums.

91

I resolved my issue by changing my export from SSL to non-SSL as I haven’t properly set up SSL yet…

from:
export HASS_SERVER=https://hassio:8123
export HASS_TOKEN=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciO…

to:
export HASS_SERVER=http://hassio:8123
export HASS_TOKEN=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciO…

92

So we can’t configure groups via the UI anymore and areas don’t exist as entities so we can’t control whole rooms. Something that Google Home has that Home Assistant doesn’t! :upside_down_face:

I read we can define “all” as an entity which would control everything in that domain. I would like to see anyone that uses this, there would need to be exceptions in almost every scenario. It would be handy if we had an exclude for this or just a way to use groups without tedious yaml maintenance every time we add a new device.

93

I don’t know about you, but I don’t keep adding devices every day and I wouldn’t call it tedious to add one line to a file…

FWIW, I read that you will be able to add entities to areas in the next or one of the next releases.

1 Like
94

No, I don’t add them every day either. If I could afford it, maybe I would. New users migrating or being lucky enough to purchase everything in one go would feel the pain though. And to maintain a list in YAML for me is easy, now I know I have to assign everything into a group as I add it. It’s just another quick thing to do when adding a device but none of that is the point. HA is on a big push to make the front end viable and the lack of GUI group config, or area control, is glaring, IMHO.

Being able to add entities to areas is great, but what’s the point if you can’t control those areas?

95

Never been able to

96

Sorry you’re right! In my frustration I scanned this and also that group.all* had been deprecated and assumed groups were being side lined.
Kind of says something for how integral group configuration should be when in my head it was there all along :joy:

97

Hum it’s very confusing all of that… I’m new here, and I’m totally lost. Even more after reading this topic lol.

How am supposed to add entities if they are not related to a device ???

Speedtest and Raspberry Power Status for exemple ?

It’s not simple…!

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98

You can’t. Why are you trying to add speed test to an area? Are you just trying to lay out your interface? If that’s the case, you should look into taking control over your UI instead of relying on areas to organize it.

99

Thanks for your answer but it’s just a basic example…

And to add information to my comment… you can’t define a room for Speedtest… but, you can add the Entity in the Room… I’m lost.

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100

If you added the entity to the room, then what’s the problem?

101

You add it by the UI not the system… I don’t get it.

You have to be a device to be in a room for the system, but, for the UI you can be what you want.

So the Room in the system is useless ?

102

It has some uses, but not much. I think there’s a few trigger types that accept area as an input. Other than that… pretty much useless.

1 Like
103

Nothing related to Speedtest (example I’m not focus on it :sunglasses:) in the “system room”. And impossible to add Speedtest.

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104

yes that’s an overview area showing you what you’ve placed in an area… What’s your end goal here? Why is it so important to put something in an area?

105

Honestly… it’s confusing. If you have OCD you are wondering why the room in the UI and the system are not the same.

But it’s ok, I will deal with it. Thanks for you answers :+1:

106

The area and the UI are not meant to be ‘locked’ together. Area’s help you build the UI without having to take control. As soon as you take control, it’s up to the user to add and remove things from the UI.

107

Area in fact are not very interesting ?

108

Well here’s some good news. In 1.0 changes to areas are coming.

  1. You can add an entity to area.
  2. You can perform actions on area. E.g. light.turn_on with area_id: kitchen and all the lights in the kitchen will turn on.
  3. Area’s provide hints to voice assistants (Google for now, alexa doesn’t support this).
  4. The area_id will be based on the area’s name instead of a random number.
  5. Areas are included in the target selector UI.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/783308362284138516/783384785153687612/target-selector-v2.gif(image larger than 3072KB)

4 Likes
109

Nice !!

It seems that they are concerned about it :+1: