When I (or my family) gets a new phone the best option (from the forums) to make sure the name stays the same you have to:
Write down/remember the current device name
Remove the current device
Restart Home Assistant (I’ve ran into problems if I forget this)
Login to Home Assistant app on the new device
Enter the same name (hopefully correctly)
Resetup all the same sensor choices
I’ve ran into problems with this process a few times with my family members forgetting they had an apostrphy, or something in the device name. Then you have to go back and rejoin. A bit frustrating.
The Ideal process would be:
User gets new devices
Login to Home Assistant (HA) app
HA server recognizes this user has 1+ devices already
HA app asks (Are you replacing one of these devices?)
(If yes: keep name and copy sensor settings; unless cross os mapping isn’t possible) (If no: continue as currently does)
Here are some forum posts about how this is difficult:
I’m an iOS user and got a new Android work phone, I’ve installed HA app on there to see the difference. I’ve logged in with my account. At this point, I didn’t realize this new phone was automatically added as a device tracker to my account.
Later, for my work, I was GPS spoofing and my house was doing weird things as it thought I left/came back several times.
Only a few days later, after pulling many hairs, I found out the phone was to track me.
Exactly.
Shelly 2.5 (Gen1) after 2 years are useless (they often lose wifi connection or even don’t respond to physical input) so you must replace them.
Ideally, when we discover/add a new device we should be asked if we are adding a new device or replacing an old one.
This would help a lot, especially in long-term statistics, automations, dashboards, etc
Off topic but I can tell you it’s not always the case with the shellies. I’ve had 2.5PM (Gen1) open and close my roller shutters for 4 years every single day, still work like a charm.
Agreed. And not just with “advanced” devices like phones.
While I’ve had good success with dozens of a particular zwave switch, which has about 20 associated entities, I did have one die about two weeks after installing. Replaced under warranty, but by that time, it had been integrated with many automations, scripts, and even a few scenes. Also replaced some simpler devices with only a few entities, which is manageable but annoying.
It’s be great, when HA recognizes a new device, to just say it replaces an existing device and choose which one. Then HA can match the entities and everything else still works. Or, if it’s not the same make/model, prompt the user to map entity on the device to old entity.
If I change my device name it shouldn’t affect all my notification calls too… Especially on iOS there’s no way to specify an SSID so sometimes I play around with device name to change my hotpsot SSID.
I think it’s actually quite easy to replace a phone or any other device. Just give it the same name as the device you’re replacing.
Name your phone “Keiths Phone” instead of “Samsung S22”
Name your living room TV “Living Room TV” instead of “Sony Bravia 3”
Name your kitchen light “Kitchen Light” instead of “EcoDim BV Dimmer-Switch-ZB3.0”
etcetera
Then when you replace any device just remove the old one and give the new one the same name.
That indeed does work, but it takes forethought. But, for a normal non-tech user they buy a phone, log into Home Assistant app, then they don’t get notifications and wonder why it’s not working.
Their thought process is… I logged in as me, why don’t I get my notifications.
