Entity naming of Z-wave devices

[gohassgo]

I just set up a fresh Hass.io on an rpi3 and added a Z-wave USB stick. It’s showing all of my zwave devices, but I can’t get any to show either in a card on the home page or in a group view.

Initially, I went to Configuration > Customization, found each of the switches in the list and gave them a new “name”. This put a pretty name for them on the home page in the auto-generated “Switch” card. I think I did this under Configuration > Z-Wave > Z-Wave entities > Z-Wave entities, but I’m so confused right now I’m not sure. When I go back there I don’t see a way to rename any devices…

Now I want to add entities to other cards and views. Which field do I use under “entities:” in my config files?

I’m starting with switches, and all of them look similar to this, all with the new entity id being “switch.switch”:

I’ve tried editing in Configuration > Z-Wave > Z-Wave entities > Z-Wave Node Management > Rename Node, but that name isn’t what I need. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[cgtobi (Tobi)]

Did you restart HA after the renaming? You can take a look at the Developer Tools under States for the actual node names.

[gohassgo]

Yeah, I’ve been going to Configuration > General > Reload Core, and sometimes via ssh “hassio homeassistant restart”.

[gohassgo]

Thanks–Developer Tools looks like where I need to rename.

[cgtobi (Tobi)]

No, you rename z-wave devices in Configuration > Z-Wave > Z-Wave Node Management.

[gohassgo]

When I rename in Z-Wave Node Management and restart homeassistant, the nodes come back with " Switch" appended to the names.

Here’s one node with the orignal name:

Here’s the name I gave it:

After restarting homeassistant, node mgmt looks good right?

But it’s not… Here’s how they show in the discovered switches panel, with " Switch" appended.

The name I gave it doesn’t work in /config/groups.yaml.

sunroom:
  name: Sunroom
  view: yes
  entities:
   - switch.light_sunroom_fans
   - switch.light_sunroom_cans

So that’s when I tried renaming in Customization and Developer Tools, but every time I think it’s working a restart proves otherwise.

[cgtobi (Tobi)]

You can rename your node in Configuration > Z-Wave > Z-Wave Node Management, as already stated. You can further give it a friendly_name in the customization section in your config.

My power plug is named in Z-Wave Node Management:

It shows up in the Developer Tools under States like this:

And the corresponding yaml group is something like the following:

I don’t understand what you mean by “I tried renaming in […] Developer Tools”, can you explain that? You can’t rename your nodes in the Developer Tools section.

[gohassgo]

Thanks…

Z-Wave Node Mgmt “Rename Node” + Customization’s “Name” field do work, but don’t allow renaming of the underlying entity name(s)–at least to a name that you want. All renames for switches get a “_switch” appended. This seems unnecessary since the entity name is already prefixed by “switch.”.

It appears at first that dev tools does allow a rename to whatever you want, but things get screwy fast. Here’s a screenshot of a previously edited “new_entity_id” field by dropping “_switch_switch” off the end of the id. Clicking in the “State attributes” area lets you edit. Clicking “SET STATE” somewhat saves the change.

The new id stays put in the “attributes” column but not the “Entity” column.

Restart homeassistant and the new_entity_id attribute reverts to the original value.

So is there any way to rename new_entity_id without hass modifying my change?

Thanks

[cgtobi (Tobi)]

To be honest, I wouldn’t put too much effort into those node names anyway other than making them explicit enough to identify them. You can customize them and give them friendly names via the customization panel or in your yaml config.

[gohassgo]

It’s looking like that’s what I need to do. Z-Wave node renaming plus a Customization name change seem to be the winning combination.

I appreciate your help…

Thanks

[mixedup (Greg)]

follow up question re how to change entity name for a “switch” device that was created along with the “zwave” device - have pulled out into it’s own question here: How to change a switch's entity name? (switch from zwave)