A lot of time when I (re)add or integration (re)adds device which has already been used a new device ID+name is created in HA. This quite clutters up list of devices and makes hard to keep automations and other scripts working.
This happens a lot with ZigBee - repairing and readding a device creates new ID+name pair in HA. Another example is Mikrotik and UPNP integration. I have o lot of duplicate listings for one network device.
It would be very nice if HA automatically matched the devices according to their UID (HW address or something). Especially if it would work across integrations. This would lead to several major benefits:
- HA would show “real” devices only without their ghosts
- one device presence instead of seemingly several devices (eg. I have device detected by network integration and integration specific to device)
- migration of device from integration to integration without major hassle. Example: switching ZigBee integration would be without big change of automations etc. as the devices would be matched (yes I know that it would not be that simple due to different properties exposed)
- better presence detection for devices - network presence would be tied directly to the “real” device instead of network ghost
- no more clutter and duplicates which is hard to navigate and requires manual purge
P.S.: It would be nice if consistent naming scheme for ID of new devices is used. Prefereably always including their ID.