HS4 Device Naming Convention

[macromark]

When I converted to HS4 a couple years ago, one of the first things I did was to go through all of my devices and rename them so that the full syntax made sense. Here's what I would recommend:

Start with the syntax Location2 | Location1 | Device Name | Feature Name and consider the components

• Location2 = typically a large area ("First Floor", "Basement", "Outside")
• Location1 = a subset of your Location2 ("Living Room", "Bathroom", "Driveway")
• Device Name = the smart product your HomeSeer system is controlling ("Floodlight Sensor", "Wall Switch") OR the end device that is being controlled by this smart product ("Overhead Light", "Piano Lamp")
• Feature Name = the attribute of your smart product that's doing the work or is changing status ("switch", "dimmer", "status", "operating mode", "LUX", "Battery")

Examples

Outside | Breezeway | Overhead Light | Switch
First Floor | Living Room | Thermostat | Temperature
Second Floor | Bathroom | Door Sensor | Battery

HS4 uses this syntax in various lists so renaming devices like this will help when you create events and do searches.

[Walnut2000]

Thank you for the advice.

What would you recommend for use in smaller, single story homes?

I live in an apartment, so using Location2 as you suggest doesn't really work for me. I don't have a 1st Floor or basement, and I just treat the roof terrace area as another room.

What would you recommend in these circumstances?

[macromark]

Thank you for the advice.

What would you recommend for use in smaller, single story homes?

I live in an apartment, so using Location2 as you suggest doesn't really work for me. I don't have a 1st Floor or basement, and I just treat the roof terrace area as another room.

What would you recommend in these circumstances?

Our office here is a single floor dwelling as well. We use Front and Back attributes. The reception area and offices are in the Front. The warehouse, manufacturing and support areas are in the Back. In your case, you could do something similar or just create a catch-all Location2 attribute of Apartment or Home or My if nothing else makes sense. The thing to avoid is using the same term for Location2 and Location1 like Living Room | Living Room.

[Eman]

randy suggested the below in the image a while back and seems to cover all situations ;



Then you would name the device including it's location say, Front Door_Motion Sensor....etc. Because if you are not using Z-wave alone as Functional group, it makes sense for all the other plug-in types and/or external systems like Node-RED (Virtual) or JeeDOM (Network)








Eman.

[Walnut2000]

Thanks for those suggestions.

[upstatemike]

One thing I would like to see is a map of the HS naming convention as it aligns to the naming conventions of other platforms like Alexa, Hue, ISY, etc. This way it will be easier to keep naming consistent across platforms. For example: would Location2 map to an Alexa room? Would Location1 map to an ISY folder? These are not arbitrary decisions because the various plugins import data to certain locations and likewise Alexa creates names from Homeseer and other platforms in a certain way.

Knowing exactly how these automatic processes populate across platforms could potentially influence how you use Location1 Location2 etc. and ultimately can mean the difference between things populating automatically as long as you select the right name during device setup vs a whole lot of editing after the fact to sort it all out.

[The Profit]

macromark

This post is helpful, but if I could make a suggestion. When I started naming devices/features with this convention in the beginning, I had difficulties when creating HSTouch screens and being able to quickly see what device was associated under Status/Device Associations/Status Track under Element Properties. If you look at the drop down listing that I see when selecting a device to track, you will notice that my naming convention needed the feature to be named 1st Floor/ Dining Room/ Dining Room Light (1st Floor/Dining Room/HomeSeer Tech Switch Binary/Dining Room Light) in order to see "Dining Room Light" in the "Status Track" field in HSTouch designer. If I didn't use that name then it would only say "Light" which meant I would have to click into each field for each element in order to make sure the correct device was selected.
Maybe an option to fix this issue would be to display the Device Name/Feature Name instead of just the Feature Name?

Also, you will notice that the device name "HomeSeer Tech Switch Binary" shows as a completely different device to select from instead of being apart of the full name (Location2/Location1/Device Name/Device Feature). Because of this, some of my Device names I had to set to Device Name Root so that I knew it was the root device instead of the switch I wanted to track.

Lastly, If I didn't include the location1 and feature in the Central Scene feature, I wouldn't know which device the central scene belonged to.

[outbackrob]

When I converted to HS4 a couple years ago, one of the first things I did was to go through all of my devices and rename them so that the full syntax made sense. Here's what I would recommend:

Start with the syntax Location2 | Location1 | Device Name | Feature Name and consider the components

• Location2 = typically a large area ("First Floor", "Basement", "Outside")
• Location1 = a subset of your Location2 ("Living Room", "Bathroom", "Driveway")
• Device Name = the smart product your HomeSeer system is controlling ("Floodlight Sensor", "Wall Switch") OR the end device that is being controlled by this smart product ("Overhead Light", "Piano Lamp")
• Feature Name = the attribute of your smart product that's doing the work or is changing status ("switch", "dimmer", "status", "operating mode", "LUX", "Battery")

Examples

Outside | Breezeway | Overhead Light | Switch
First Floor | Living Room | Thermostat | Temperature
Second Floor | Bathroom | Door Sensor | Battery

HS4 uses this syntax in various lists so renaming devices like this will help when you create events and do searches.

Since HS1 (maybe?) I have had Location 1 as Room and Location 2 as Type. Type is like Dimmer Switch, Motion Detector, Appliance Module, Central Scene. Super easy to find things or look up all of a certain type. Finding a device in an event device list was pretty easy, too. I had show Location 1 first, so all I had to do was scroll down to the room and then look for the device. Now, not so much. I am running HS4 Standard Edition 4.2.6.0 (Windows) and in an Event device list, the devices are not sorted in any method I can determine. Trying to find a device by looking is nearly impossible. But THANK YOU for the search function! That makes it possible to find things, but having them in order is much easier. Is there any way to sort that list? Is there a better naming convention that would make things easier? I am new to HS4 so maybe there are new features or new ways of doing things. I know I asked that question with an answer right above, but is that the BEST way? If I can't sort by feature, what is it used for? In your naming convention above, how do you then use Catagory? I know I am overthinking this, but I can't seem to figure out the best way. My goal is to make it easy to narrow down to the devices I want.

[The Profit]

outbackrob Try going to your HS4 Device Management List and there is a drop down menu at the top just to the right of "Add Filters". Select "Floor Asc", then open a new/existing event and the add a new trigger/condition/action with "A Device is" and see if your devices are then sorted by your Location 2.

It might be more helpful if this drop down list contained "Location 1/Location 2....etc." I use Marks suggested naming convention but everyone's situation and setup is different so using Floor/Room/Name in the drop down menu might be confusing when using a different naming convention.

[outbackrob]

outbackrob Try going to your HS4 Device Management List and there is a drop down menu at the top just to the right of "Add Filters". Select "Floor Asc", then open a new/existing event and the add a new trigger/condition/action with "A Device is" and see if your devices are then sorted by your Location 2......

Unfortunately, that doesn't really change things. Looking carefully, it does group by Location2 (or "Type" in my case) but that is not in alphabetical order so finding that group is laborious.....



UPDATE: I had "Display Location1 first" checked off. Unchecked it and I could see everything by room first in alphabetical order. That makes it easier.....

[DanW_72]

Apologies for the noob question - I'm following a similar naming convention, but in the log it seems to only show location1 / location2 / feature. And it missing Device. I did see this link that seems to work-around the topic by renaming the Feature to be more descriptive, but this seems to be missing the point.

Case in point examples. A device in my list (1st floor, Bedroom, Anglepoise):


And the entry in the log. Note the absence of "Anglepoise", which is a nice descriptor of the device itself. I'd kinda expect the log to show all 4 components:


What am I doing wrong?

[upstatemike]

When I converted to HS4 a couple years ago, one of the first things I did was to go through all of my devices and rename them so that the full syntax made sense. Here's what I would recommend:

Start with the syntax Location2 | Location1 | Device Name | Feature Name and consider the components

• Location2 = typically a large area ("First Floor", "Basement", "Outside")
• Location1 = a subset of your Location2 ("Living Room", "Bathroom", "Driveway")
• Device Name = the smart product your HomeSeer system is controlling ("Floodlight Sensor", "Wall Switch") OR the end device that is being controlled by this smart product ("Overhead Light", "Piano Lamp")
• Feature Name = the attribute of your smart product that's doing the work or is changing status ("switch", "dimmer", "status", "operating mode", "LUX", "Battery")

Examples

Outside | Breezeway | Overhead Light | Switch
First Floor | Living Room | Thermostat | Temperature
Second Floor | Bathroom | Door Sensor | Battery

HS4 uses this syntax in various lists so renaming devices like this will help when you create events and do searches.

I don't really need the large area for Location2 since I already know the living room is on the 1st floor and the driveway is outside. What about the idea of using Location 2 to group things by technology such as Z-Wave, Lifx, Hue, Thermostat, Phone, Brultech, Elk, ISY, etc. I use these same groupings to organize events so it makes sense to me to follow this convention for device names. I am currently organizing things in HS3 but want to use a convention that translates easily to HS4. Anybody else using technology type in their names?

I also want to be mindful of how Alexa will pick up the device names so they are not awkward to say in a verbal commands.

[macromark]

upstatemike There is no hard and fast rule about naming devices. My "conventions" are formulated to create an expression that (A) precisely identifies a device and (B) sounds natural when it's spoken. Keep in mind though that HS3 has only 3 attributes (Loc2, Loc1, Device) and HS4 has 4 attributes (Loc2, Loc1, Device, Feature). As such, you'll still need to rename things when you transition to HS4.

Note also that HS4 has a "Category" attribute. I think that would be the ideal place to track technology. That attribute is also one of the main filters you could use when viewing devices.

[upstatemike]

upstatemike There is no hard and fast rule about naming devices. My "conventions" are formulated to create an expression that (A) precisely identifies a device and (B) sounds natural when it's spoken. Keep in mind though that HS3 has only 3 attributes (Loc2, Loc1, Device) and HS4 has 4 attributes (Loc2, Loc1, Device, Feature). As such, you'll still need to rename things when you transition to HS4.

Note also that HS4 has a "Category" attribute. I think that would be the ideal place to track technology. That attribute is also one of the main filters you could use when viewing devices.

Sounds logical. The next test will be to see how things map by default across other platforms when devices are imported to HS. For example how will (Loc2, Loc1, Device, Feature) line up with:

ISY = Folder, room:name (mapping managed by plugin)
Lifx = Location, Group, Device
Alexa = Group, Device
HUE = Room, Device
Elk = Partition, Zone or Output
etc.

Hopefully each platform will cooperate so there isn't a huge amount of maintenance with the names every time you import devices or entire platforms full of devices.

[macromark]

Apologies for the noob question - I'm following a similar naming convention, but in the log it seems to only show location1 / location2 / feature. And it missing Device. I did see this link that seems to work-around the topic by renaming the Feature to be more descriptive, but this seems to be missing the point.

Case in point examples. A device in my list (1st floor, Bedroom, Anglepoise):


And the entry in the log. Note the absence of "Anglepoise", which is a nice descriptor of the device itself. I'd kinda expect the log to show all 4 components:


What am I doing wrong?

There's a screen shot in the HS4 quickstart guide that diagrams the relationship between devices and feature in list view: file:///Z:/HS%20Products/HomeSeer%20HS4/HS4-QuickStart-Guide.pdf In your case, click on the "Settings" tab to name the device.

As for the log, yup, that's a bug.