Hello everyone,
I have a few energy monitors that I use to track energy consumption.
When I change the monitored device or when a device goes out of service (e.g. I buy a new fridge), the device becomes obsolute.
If I delete it from HA, I can no longer easily check the recorded data to compare it to new devices.
How do you handle this?
E g. a smart plug tracked my old fridge. Now it tracks my new fridge. The smart plug used to have the label of the old fridge and now has a new label.
So for HA the old name does not exist anymore and the database data is no longer being offered.
P.S.: I tried renaming the device and all associated entities but then HA can no longer access the old data in the database.
So I am struggling to reuse a metering device without losing all old data.
Simple: replace the device and keep the smart plug the same! As an additional benefit it will allow you to compare energy consumption of the new device Vs the old device.
Then you either have to give the smart plug a name that has no link to the device (poor approach as you will need to memorize which device is connected to which generic plug) or change the plug’s name, which makes it impossible to look at the old data again (unless you keep the entity_ids but that makes no sense because most filters use entity_id and not friendly_name.
No I don’t: smart plug fridge will remain to be what it was: the smart plug for the fridge. Same for washing machine, dryer, dishwasher, coffee machine, microwave etc.
Only if you continue to use it in the same place. This is often not the case.
I have plugs that I have used for all kinds of devices.
So sometimes you go from router to NAS or you go to the computer in the office and then a microwave.
Your logic only works in extremly simple cases (mainly for large appliances in the kitchen).
Almost all my non-wall-installed devices (plus some installed ones) have been used for something new and unrelated.
I have thought about this and right now, the only working solution is to name the device based on something stupid like its MAC and then have an Excel of which device was connected to what and when. And that is anything but a good approach 
A true solution is missing in HA. And retirement would be one 
That’s absolutely correct! I do have 1 smart plug which is being leveraged for different devices from time to time. That one is simply named zwave smart plug. For the rest I tend to keep the plugs per device so I can actually steer on lower energy consumption (like replacing the fridge). I also use quite some automations out of the power plugs (alerts when laundry is done, or alerts when the freeze is consuming too little which indicates a problem). And yes: I use a whole lot of power plugs (believe 14 at this moment in time)
I use 6 smart plugs as “flex tests”. So they wander through my apartment from device to device depending on need
And at the moment I am tracking all kind of devices’ consumptions, so a lot of movement.
But I also have some in long term usage.
And all of them have the names of the attached devices so I can easily monitor.
But as soon as I switch: problem 