Petro was not trying to deny what the OP wanted, but just trying to say that in order to get the information needed, one would have to actually install the integration. So that is why this wish is not going to be fulfilled, no matter how desirable it is. He heard it, thought about it, and put in the effort to explain why that is not something that is bound to be realized. To me that is a helpful answer, even though it is not what you all want to hear.
This is an example of how, even if this was implemented, it would probably not work. For HA would tell you it thinks it is Tuya, not Ledvance. It would need to complete the right (Tuya?) integration installation in order to know how to get the information from the device, because HA is relying on integrations to understand and communicate with devices.
Sure, completely agree, I don’t recommend implementing anything like that.
It was a response to suggestions that what I’m proposing in the FR is impossible. At first I noted that “Maybe there’s an entirely new mechanism needed, so that it would be possible” – that should be enough, no need for virtual machines or whatever Anyway: possible. In many cases (not claiming “for all of cases”).
Actually, I’ve noticed a lot of torpedoing FRs on this forum. This is freakin ridiculous to me. I kinda anticipate such reactions already. Sadface.
Anyway, thanks for putting your voice in the discussion.
It seems to me that for a wifi device at least, it probably broadcasts a hostname and certainly a MAC address. There are plenty of MAC address databases HA could use to say "this device appears to be made with a shitty wifi chip commonly used by Tuya which is calling itself zhub_gateway_abcd7755
Fair enough, point taken and agreed that is helpful.
Nevertheless…
From my (non-technical) perspective, I get that it completely makes sense that only by installing the integration will you get the info “what will this integration provide” (the second part of the FR). But I truly suspect - per other users’ ideas on this thread and other threads too - that there could be a way to scrape or match what limited broadcast information there is to provide some additional context as to the device triggering the newly discovered integration (first part of the FR), e.g. the IP address that I could manually match to my other devices? MAC address matched to public databases?
Actually I’m perfectly happy to hear if something isn’t possible! That’s not my concern here
Rather, the point I was trying to make still stands: maybe the FR in its exact current formulation is technically impossible. Fair enough. But simply shutting it down as such prevents the opportunity for an engaging and useful discourse to explore “What’s the underlying problem here? Perhaps there are other ways to solve this?” to try and make the platform more user friendly for everyone.
Given HA’s establishment of their foundation, and their desire to commercialise and make their solution mass-marketable, I think the attitude of the HA open source community will need to adapt to achieve this goal…
Whereas until now the community have typically been very tech minded people who can get over some of the hurdles of a complicated UI, and I could imagine (correct me if in wrong) a majority of FRs have been related to new functionalities rather than improve User Experience… User experience FRs will need to be taken much more seriously going forwards.
I can pretty much guarantee you that if the community using HA in the future is more mass-market, if one person takes the effort to post about a frustration with their user experience, there will be 10s more behind it thinking the same thing, but not taking the effort to set up a forum account and provide their feedback!
This could actually be useful. My Unifi gear clearly has such a database in order to identify devices on my network, but it’s not super accurate (it’s reasonable though). Part of the reason is that many products are white labeled.
Where I’m getting stuck with this FR in general is that I typically plug in a new device, expecting a specific integration to detect it, so it’s not really a surprise to me. I can appreciate OP’s specific example of having a firmware upgrade and now having a seemingly new device show up, but even in that case I’d argue that you’d relate it to the last thing you did.
Makes sense @parautenbach that most times you’d expect an integration to appear when you plug in a new device.
I think another common use case though - and potentially increasingly common as HA goes on its journey to become more accessible and the smart home platform of choice - is the first time user who already had their devices set up in various separate apps, and now wants to consolidate things and installs HA in a “pre-existing” smart home environment.
I still have some suggested integrations that I haven’t quite gotten around to working out what device is triggering it.
Anyway: possible. In many cases (not claiming “for all of cases”).