Hi,
since the update that added floors came out, I started recreating using areas the various rooms for the various floors, and here I was faced with the problem:
You can’t create two areas (example: Bathroom) since home assistant won’t let you create two areas with the same name even if they are on two different floors.
And here I realized that maybe areas and rooms are not the same thing.
So I was thinking it would be nice if rooms were implemented or at least the uniqueness of the name is removed.
Another thing I was thinking is that it would be just as nice if the entities in a room were named after it and not the device.
I am naming the entities based on the name of the room (mainly) or areas they are in
Example:
To avoid this problem I am putting names of people who use those rooms (e.g. bedrooms) or I use different terms.
But I don’t think it’s a correct solution
Going back to your original example regarding bathrooms. How do you usually distinguish between them in conversation?
In my case, I simply named them “Main Bathroom” and “Spare Bathroom”. This avoids any doubt as to what room you are actually referring to.
I think what you say is correct.
But it applies only in case there are 2 bathrooms on the same floor.
In my case the house has three floors and each has a bathroom.
And there is no main one.
For identify them I use the floor
Not everyone has a house with multiple floors. Not everything is on a specific floor. So making floor designation mandatory for every area, which is what would be needed if areas with identical names are allowed, is not a good idea IMO.
If you name the area that represents your first floor bathroom ‘first floor bathroom’, and similar for the other floors, would that be a workable solution for you?
Yes, this can be done as well.
but then why should I use floors? in the sense that if I also put the membership floor in the name of the area after there is no risk that the assistant (nabu) gets confused?
No, those names are completely independent. Floors are a way to group your areas. So eg if you want to turn off the lights in every room on the second floor, you can use the floor as the target of the action and don’t have to add all the areas to your automation.
Edit:oh wait, you were asking about the voice assistant. I don’t use that feature. But I understand the concern. Maybe ask a question in the ‘configuration’ part of the forum.
Anyway, naming two areas exactly the same as per your feature request would probably only make that worse!
Maybe I’m wrong
The assistant when receiving the rooms, the floors and entities does not see them grouped in this way?
Example:
- first floor
- bathroom first floor
- light bathrom first floor
- thermostat bathrom first floor
- room luke
- light room luke
- luke desk light
- other floor
[...]
(It makes a lot of sense to me the phrase “first floor” repeated for each entity/area)
The last time i tried(Some month ago) it did anything else. I should try to see if anything has changed since the last time.
However if I am the only one who has this problem I am most likely doing something wrong.
No, that’s not how it works. You can have entities that are not in any area, and no floors at all in your house. It’s not a folder structure.
I don’t even know how it works internally but I think the area is an optional property of an entity and a floor is a optional property of an area.