I agree that by categorizing the suggestions you are editorializing. Even worse, the categories allow you to vote on “meta” like if you agree/disagree the category has merit.
Vote:
Candidates with foreign-sounding names:
But not summarised anywhere 
. Back to where we were. Doh!
They fail to see the two issues are intrinsically linked <Manufacturer> <Model> <Explanation>
? This topic is about the name…
The ADRs are separate, and of course will be published, summarized and serve as a base for the documentation as well after that.
Yes, precisely that. So far at least, the results indicate that people don’t really like the more abstract names like Platinum, Gold, Prime for example. So it helps us trim the list down, eliminate some of the less popular suggestions, and know what areas to best focus on.
But I don’t know if there will continue to be polls, I personally don’t like them and only added it after it was suggested to me in this thread. I had already mentioned yesterday (before adding these) that I’d rather see people actually debating the reasons for/against certain choices instead of simply clicking a button to vote.
I only added them because there’s been dozens of naming suggestions now without any type of consensus, and I thought doing this would help at least make some forward progress in shortening the list.
I do not feel like I was editorializing, I tried to be as fair as possible and incorporate as many suggestions and viewpoints as possible. Many of the naming suggestions had common ideas and themes behind them (focusing on it being the whole package, focusing on it being the easiest, focusing on it having the OS) and I thought that categorizing them was the best way to vote on this. The alternative would be one mega poll that had dozens of suggestions that probably no one would read.
I dunno, I tried my best here 
. I am totally fine with closing the polls if others agree.
I’d recommend leaving them open, we have only had about 30 people vote as yet.
Some people only drop in two or three times a week. So to be fair I would hold it open a week just to give people a) a chance to vote b) a notified closing date so they can mull it over.
Thanks again
What really would help for me would be an architectural drawing of some sort of landscape with several flavours. I even find it hard to find out what the name of my currently installed setup is (hassos as vm in esxi)… there are so many options…
BTW. I would think of my setup with all in one (hassos, supervisor, addons, etc) as an appliance.
So I would vote for “HomeAssistant Appliance”.
I am a Windows user and always will be. I need the windows applications to help me in my life and work (teacher).I had a Mac at one point but went back to windows. I probably represent the majority of people out there who has never even heard of another operating system than windows!
Therefore, the vast majority of potential users are not very techy but know enough to get by so why can’t Hass.io stay as Home Assistant?
And all other types of installation methods are named to something that represents the installation method. I can’t give specifics because I don’t really know what docker/Ubuntu/Linux/container/hypervisor is.
But surely if you are a user who uses another installation method knows and can state/describe how you are running it?
this so illustrates my feeling exactly, thank for this. If one needs Homeassistant, browse to the page with the install instructions, and click/download the file, and follow the instructions.
no need to categorize the end user by expertise, no need for cryptic naming…
even the tech savvy can be lazy 
or just want to feel luxurious, with a piece of software that does is all for you.
Keep viewing this from a technical engineering perspective and risk losing the potential customer who just wants Homeassistant to work. Add a dedicated page for the more specific setups with extra technical requirements, to accommodate all who do need/want others setups than Homeassistant Suite
Love the polls, great to see the community is actively contributing. This is what makes HA a great piece of widely developed and supported community software product. Thanks for that!
All the installation methods produce ‘home assistant’ the problem is that the ‘supported’ methods of installing are being reduced to allow greater concentration on the features people want.
The issue being addressed here is that a recent discussion has highlighted that there was a significant proportion of users who did not know (so how can they be supported ?) what installation method they used.
It’s also about how to guide users to the best method for them and what it should be called to assure them they are selecting the most appropriate. And what is included in that.
What ever method, you will get ‘Home Assistant’ it’s just the option around it that will change
It was a vote for a new name and all suggestions should have been offered on equal footing (i.e. uncategorized).
They weren’t merely categorized, there was a poll within a poll by asking if an entire category should be rejected. Polls avoid these practices to remain unbiased.
I draw your attention to the brief example I had provided. A poll to select, say, a councilor would not be categorized by any metric (ancestry, religion, age, etc) nor would it ask to vote against an entire category.
What’s done is done. Please leave it open for at least a week so we can get a decent sample size.
Because if and when you ask for assistance, saying you installed Home Assistant is completely ambiguous. Everyone here has Home Assistant because it’s in each and every one of the four installation methods. The fact that one installation version assumed the name Home Assistant (in January) has caused confusion and that’s why there’s this poll to select a unique name.
Speaking as someone who has helped hundreds of people, if you tell me you installed Home Assistant, I can’t tell which version you installed until you clarify it first. In the near future, saying you installed All-in-one (or whatever the winning name will be) instantly tells me what you have.
Thank you, Sean. I appreciate the effort you went to with this thread and the polls, I’m sure many others agree.
The only suggestion I would add is to give the current polls in this thread another day or 2 to run, then take the top 5 names and start a new thread, closed to comments, with a final poll listing the shortlisted names, and sticky it so everyone can see it. Leave that to run for 1 week.
I think it’s fantastic that the community has been given a proper platform to have a robust discussion about something before a final decision has been made. It’s shows how passionate people are about Home Assistant and that they care what happens to it.
Hopefully more of these sorts of threads and discussions can take place. Yes, things can get a little of topic at times, but largely, people are sharing their thoughts and opinions and keeping discussion open and free from sanction and sanitation is important.
What a great community to be a part of.
I largely agree with you. I’m not advocating for Gold, Silver etc, or Mango, Banana etc. The name as you have stated needs to cover what it does (for the most part) to help elevate the confusion, but at the same time also be a clever, easy to remember name. (this is the branding part).
Simple is normally better. Home Assistant All-In-One is not simple. Home Assistant One, is. It describes the same thing, however that latter is simple and easy for the punter to remember.
Home Assistant Appliance makes it sounds like an off the shelf product that will be plug and play like a toaster, which it is not. This is why the name choice and branding is important.
Prime or Plus indicate paid versions based on what other companies have done with their products. The public already considers these words to indicate there is a financial component involved.
Maybe you see something different when you’re logged in with your GitHub account but this is what I see with my account when I follow the URL you supplied. It’s an editing discussion about the proposed document, shown in fragments, not the document in its entirety.
In contrast, this is what I see with my account using the link I posted. It’s the proposed document in its entirety without commentary. However, finding this link required a fair bit of clicking around and supports my point that these documents aren’t easy to find (in contrast to the table I posted in this very thread).
Even when the PRs are accepted, they will become full-fledged ADRs and I wager most users have no idea they exist let alone where to find them so I count on your pledge that they’ll be incorporated in to the documentation. When the time comes and if you need a hand with that, let me know.
Another real-world example for comparison to explain the problem:
imagine arriving at a gas station where they have an employee that fills up the tank. For him to fulfill his task it isn’t sufficient to know that it’s a Ford, or even the more specific Mondeo type. What he needs to know to help you keep driving is if it requires Diesel or regular gas to operate. Not knowing this fact could potentially break your car.
Appliance does it for me. Users need to know or learn some technical terms, it’s part of their journey to Home Automation. Eventually they will have to learn the technical jargon, sooner or later, it’s inevitable.
It’s not rocket science and it’s standard technical terminology which is used industry wide, this will help with the consistency, clearness, etc with the user base, the people working on the project, etc. Maybe next month there will be a new installation/deployment method and what you gonna do? Create another tier on top of the existing one? Gold, Silver, Platinum and for the new method then Palladium?
When suggesting installation methods, you can just recommend the Home Assistance Appliance as the easiest and recommended method, which is a ready-made solution, plug and play, doesn’t require extra components or software. It comes in different flavors:
-Docker appliance
-VM appliance
-Baremetal appliance (In which the image is burned directly to the hard drive/microSD/whatever storage.)
To me these terms are technically correct, we are dealing with technical stuff, and I know the project is gearing towards making it easy for anyone to get into home automation, but it still requires certain technical knowledge and learning.
These terms can be easily explained in a few lines on the installation guide and types.
Then Home Assistant is the software itself, the appliance we all know it’s the fully packaged and ready solution, in whichever flavor you want.
Since the term is industry standard all major technology vendors refer to their “bundled” or “ready-made” solutions as an appliance, the hardware bundled with the software (or the docker or VM images), it is just plug and play, do your basic setup and you’re good to go. And they always have different flavors, whether it’s the image itself, docker, a VM file, etc.
It’s by far the recommended option and now they’re moving away from legacy setups, since these appliances have their advantages: easier to install, easier to maintain/update, easier to configure, easier to backup/restore, easier to rollback, etc. The only exception being the baremetal installation which still makes things easier. While Home Assistant is not a big IT company, all big players in the industry are doing this. And it’s definitely making it’s way to the consumers as well, we are all going towards these installation methods/virtualization instead of more traditional ones.
Even the HomeAssistant team wanted to get away from it:
Using Gold, Premium, Platinum, Max, Snap, Hub, One, Suite does not tell me anything.
If anything if makes me think of subscriptions and that I must use the one that sounds the fanciest like the Ultra Plus Ultimate version, it also implies one is better than the other. One isn’t better than the other, they’re just aimed at people with different environment or taste, maybe they love VMs or docker, or would rather have something simple, cheap and maintenance free such as the baremetal install on an RPi.
It also feels degrading and cheap to be using such terminology for installation methods for such an amazing thing like Home Assistant.
The table looks good, the naming doesn’t. It’s the same software in different packaging for your preferred environment/method.
Nothing personal, not trying to insult anyone but that’s my opinion.
Actually, it’s not all the “same software in different packaging”. The first two installation methods contain considerably more software than the last two methods: six docker containers apiece plus the first one includes an operating system.
Only the last two installation methods qualify as “same software in different packaging”. They’re both the core Home Assistant application, with one distributed as python code and the other as a docker container. Neither include the additional functionality provided by the first two installation methods.
The idea was to not only find out which choices had the most community support, but also which particular category people prioritized most when deciding upon a name. I don’t agree with your human analogy; this is an inanimate object, there’s no discrimination involved. If you were deciding between “Tesla Fast” and “Tesla Quiet” for example, it’d make sense to ask users whether they prioritized speed or silence more in their electric cars.
I don’t feel like it was biased in any way personally. In each category there were multiple options, an ‘other’ option, and a ‘none of the above’ option. I did that to allow for every viewpoint to be expressed. I didn’t tell anyone which options to choose, and even stressed six different times that it was multiple choice.
That was the plan, but in hindsight I regret adding the poll at all. In order to attempt to please everyone you’d have to hold a poll just to decide which options even go in the poll, then another to decide how those options are presented fairly, then another to decide how long the poll runs, etc. The whole process becomes too bogged down in red tape and deciding all these trivial details on how to conduct polling rather than actually focusing on the subject at hand, picking a name.
And of course there’s never going to be consensus on any of those details either. You said it’d be OK to wrap this first part up in 1-2 days, another user said one week, another user said 2-4 weeks. There’s no right or wrong answer there honestly, so unless someone starts deciding these things it’ll just remain in deadlock forever. And I don’t feel like I’m able to make any of these decisions without facing criticism no matter what, so despite kicking this all off, it hasn’t been a very enjoyable experience for me tbh.
I’m not exactly sure how to proceed from here, perhaps it’s best to hand this task off to someone else
I think you are doing well! 2 parents finding a name can be sometime time consuming. Now take 50 parents :-).
