yes it is kind of vague.
it doesn’t really say where you need to rename things or how renaming things in different ways interact overall.
right now there are 3 places where you can rename (for example) a z wave device: the entity_registry, the zwave control panel UI and the customize section. each one has a different effect on the operation and/or display of the entities associated with the device.
taking my example:
when i added the device it added all entities to the entity_registry and added those same entities to the states page. they didn’t have anything at all (or very tenously) to do with the naming of the device in the OZW UI.
the entities that showed up in states were:
- binary_sensor.sensor
- sensor.alarm_type
- sensor.alarm_level
- sensor.aeotec_dsb45_water_sensor_sourcenodeid
- sensor.aeotec_dsb45_water_sensor_flood
- zwave._
in the zwave control panel the node name was aeotec DSB45 water sensor
in the z wave UI the entities associated with the node were:
binary_sensor.aeotec dsb45 water sensor
sensor.aeotec dsb45 water sensor alarm type
sensor.aeotec dsb45 water sensor alarm level
sensor.aeotec dsb45 water sensor sourcenodeid
sensor.aeotec dsb45 water sensor flood
on the frontend if they remained unmodified they displayed with the entity id’s assigned by the entity_registry.
if i changed the name: line in the entity_registry i couldn’t see where it made any difference (the displayed name didn’t change). the docs say that it’s supposed “The value of name will override the name of the entity as given by the integration.” From that one would think that something would be different.
if you change the name of the entity (first line) in the entity_registry, then the name of the entity changes in the states and therefore all places where the old entity_id was used will need to be manually changed. the name doesn’t persist anywhere. Not to mention that to change the names of all the entities associated with a device that creates multiple entities you now have to change all of them individually.
and the names automatically assigned aren’t descriptive in ANY WAY at all. the only way to know which entities are associated with which device is to add them one at a time and see which entities get added to the entity_registry, modify each of them individually (potentially 5 or 6 entity id’s for each device) then add them to your config where desired.
using the zwave control panel (which you can still do) it changes all entities to a related name so that it’s pretty obvious that they all belong to the same device.
Now if I change the node name in the zwave UI it will change the node name and all of the associated entities but it won’t touch the entity_registry. then you have to STILL manually change each individual entity in the entity_registry for the display and entity id names to change (or use the customize section, which I haven’t tried yet but I assume might still work OK).
And now after I have added my device, it doesn’t change any values on any entities on the frontend. The OZW log shows that it is receiving the state change from the device but the entities aren’t reflecting it. Now the question becomes, is it due to some quirky thing with the entity_registry and how it interacts with the naming of the nodes in the zwave UI or is it the device or is it OZW not working (all other devices work properly) for this one device? It definitely adds another layer of complexity when trying to troubleshoot something that doesn’t work quite like you expect.
And lastly I don’t think it’s just me that isn’t getting it. From the number of threads about the new function and other peoples comments to people who don’t even know that the function is causing their issue i’m pretty sure i’m not alone in the confusion.
i’m sure there are more items of confusion but you get the idea…