Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Updating Device Names in HS/ISY

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Updating Device Names in HS/ISY

    Bob,

    I am using Alexa and I want to update a lot of device names to be more natural. I am trying to determine the best method and overall approach.

    What is the designed behavior for ISY devices/programs/variables device names and the plugin?

    I have been able to find some answers through trial and error but I'd prefer to know what's supposed to happen and not just what appears to happen.

    If devices are renamed in the ISY, they propagate to Homeseer.
    If devices are renamed in Homeseer, it seems that the plug-in overwrites them upon Homeseer restart.

    If variables are renamed in the ISY, does this only update upon a HS restart?
    (that appeared to be the case for me just now)

    Is there any way to update the location in HS and not have it be overwritten by the plug-in? This is particularly important for variables since I use the ":" to parse location and name, but I cannot use the ":" in variable names due to ISY restrictions. Also, I cannot use spaces in variable names on the ISY, but I want to add them in HS without fear of them all being overwritten without warning.

    (OK- I just tested a theory and found that if I change the HS device names of a variable named "JANDY_Pool_temperature" to location "Pool" and device name "Temperature", it gets overwritten at Homeseer startup.)

    If I edit and change the status text (let's say I define ranges and suffixes for a pool temperature variable from the ISY), will those changes get overwritten by the plug-in at some-point? Or are those only set upon device creation? They seem to stick when I change them but I am trying to make sure they won't change unexpectedly.

    Thanks,

    Tim

    One more little question to work around the variable name problem: One idea I have is to shut down Homeseer and change EVERY device and program and variable in the ISY to use the underscore as the parsing character, so that I can have my variables assigned to rooms in Homeseer. Would I first configure the ISY plug-in to parse by underscore and then shut down Homeseer, rename everything in the ISY and restart Homeseer? Will the plugin work - will it correctly overwrite the devices with themselves? In other words, would "Master Bath:Light" that I use currently be recognized as the same device as "Master Bath_Light" upon restarting Homeseer? Would Homeseer still show the device "Light" in the room "Master Bath"?
    Last edited by timlacey; June 16, 2017, 12:42 PM. Reason: addition at the end of specifix question

    #2
    [QUOTE=timlacey;1311329]Bob,

    I am using Alexa and I want to update a lot of device names to be more natural. I am trying to determine the best method and overall approach.

    What is the designed behavior for ISY devices/programs/variables device names and the plugin?

    If devices are renamed in the ISY, they propagate to Homeseer.
    [quote]
    Yes, this is the designed behavior

    If devices are renamed in Homeseer, it seems that the plug-in overwrites them upon Homeseer restart.
    Correct, this is also the designed behavior. The plug-in syncs the HomeSeer records to match what was queried from the ISY.

    If variables are renamed in the ISY, does this only update upon a HS restart?
    (that appeared to be the case for me just now)
    This is correct. I don't believe the ISY does any notification of a variable rename. It does notifications for device/scene renames and it does notifications for program changes.

    Is there any way to update the location in HS and not have it be overwritten by the plug-in? This is particularly important for variables since I use the ":" to parse location and name, but I cannot use the ":" in variable names due to ISY restrictions. Also, I cannot use spaces in variable names on the ISY, but I want to add them in HS without fear of them all being overwritten without warning.
    No, this is not possible today. The plug-in is designed to keep the HomeSeer records in sync with the ISY. I don't think there's any way to distinguish between the case where something was renamed on the ISY with the expectation of it updating the HomeSeer record vs. updating the HomeSeer record manually. In both cases, when the plug-in starts, it sees a difference and will try to make the HomeSeer record match the ISY.

    After not much thought, the plug-in could have another option in the device filter configuration that marks devices as "locked" and then the plug-in would not try to update the name/location of those devices.

    If I edit and change the status text (let's say I define ranges and suffixes for a pool temperature variable from the ISY), will those changes get overwritten by the plug-in at some-point? Or are those only set upon device creation? They seem to stick when I change them but I am trying to make sure they won't change unexpectedly.
    It depends. If you remove something the plug-in will likely add it back, but renaming or adding status values is allowed. The plug-in does try to respect user changes here because this isn't something that is synced with the ISY.

    I don't think this has been well tested to know exactly what changes will be ignored by the plug-in and what will be overwritten. In general, text changes and additions should be fine. The plug-in will try to make sure the right controls exist so that control works as expected for each device type.

    One more little question to work around the variable name problem: One idea I have is to shut down Homeseer and change EVERY device and program and variable in the ISY to use the underscore as the parsing character, so that I can have my variables assigned to rooms in Homeseer. Would I first configure the ISY plug-in to parse by underscore and then shut down Homeseer, rename everything in the ISY and restart Homeseer? Will the plugin work - will it correctly overwrite the devices with themselves? In other words, would "Master Bath:Light" that I use currently be recognized as the same device as "Master Bath_Light" upon restarting Homeseer? Would Homeseer still show the device "Light" in the room "Master Bath"?
    That should work. I think everything has a unique ID associated with it so that the link between the ISY device and HomeSeer record should survive any/all renames.

    Also, you should just need to turn off the plug-in, not shutdown and restart HomeSeer. For normal device/scenes, just changing the parsing character and then changing the device name on the ISY should cause the HomeSeer record to update. Same for programs. For variables and network resources you'd have to stop and restart the plug-in for it to pick up the name changes.

    This is not something that I've tried so you could end up with things in a strange state, but stopping and restarting the plug-in should always bring it back in sync.
    --
    Bob Paauwe
    ISYInsteon Plug-in
    http://www.bobsplace.com/ISYInsteon/

    Comment


      #3
      I was having this issue also... to work around the names being reset, I changed my ISY to mimic what I wanted in Homeseer. So, I created Folders in ISY with the names of my Homeseer Rooms, simply to keep track of things... then I renamed all devices in ISY to the names I wanted in Homeseer.

      for instance...

      ISY's "Kitchen Lights" became
      Folder = "Kitchen"
      Name = "Light"

      Then the plugin transfers only "Light" as the name and I can place it in any Floor & Room in Homeseer I desire.

      I was going to request Bob make the ability to lock the names so Homeseer renaming was possible but after thinking this through I dont see a reason it is needed as I suspect most people use Homeseer's logic & connect a front-end to it... and the ISY simply for a back-end so the naming and folder structure is irrelevant in ISY.

      Comment


        #4
        Using folders works well for devices and programs. You can even map the ISY folders to HomeSeer rooms and floors.

        The real problem is with other resources like variables and network resources. Those don't have a folder tree today so the only way to map those into HomeSeer rooms/floors if to use a separator and parse the room/floor from the name. This can be complicated as the ISY has restrictions in what characters can actually be used in variable names (and maybe network resource names too).

        The latest version, 3.0.0.45 can now "lock" the HomeSeer room/floor/name so the plug-in won't try and overwrite changes to make it match the name in the ISY. There's an extra checkbox in the device filter configuration page for this. This has come up in the past but I I didn't have a good idea on how to implement it until I read though Tim's message in this thread. Once I figured it out, it was pretty easy to add.

        I'm sure there are some corner cases where this is going to behave in possibly unexpected ways. For instance, i think if you rename a device on the ISY, it is still going to rename it in HomeSeer even if locked. If you do a device replacement in the ISY, it may revert the HomeSeer name back to the ISY name.
        --
        Bob Paauwe
        ISYInsteon Plug-in
        http://www.bobsplace.com/ISYInsteon/

        Comment

        Working...
        X