Device naming

[Gusten]

Hi

What do you all use for homekit names, for the devices?

I am trying to come up with the best way, but it seems hard.

First i thought i just use lamp, door etc. So i could say turn on livingroom lamp. But you cant use same name on several devices.

So how have you done the naming, that you think work the best?

Thanx for any tips

/Martin

[Colorado4Wheeler]

First i thought i just use lamp, door etc. So i could say turn on livingroom lamp. But you cant use same name on several devices.

Yes, that can be challenging. I use the 'easy' names for my most common things. So, for instance, I have two 'couches' that I want to control, I call one 'couch' and the other 'sofa'. Instead of calling something 'lamp' I'll instead call it 'couch lamp'.

An example of some of my devices in HomeKit:

1. Couch (action to turn on both lamps on my 'primary' couch
2. Couch Table Lamp
3. Couch Floor Lamp
4. Kitchen Ceiling
5. Kitchen Fan
6. Bed (master bedroom)
7. Guest Bed (guest suite)

You get the idea. Another thing to consider is that Siri will also shortcut things for you, so if you have a bunch of things called something 'fan' and ask Siri to turn on or off the 'fan' then it will turn on or off all of the items with that in the name (I learned that the hard way when I turned on a ceiling an like that and every fan and bathroom fan in my house went on).

I would say that how I name things is how I see them in life - it's not the lamp, because there are so many, it's the couch lamp.

[durosity]

You can have multiple things called the same thing, just have a HKB for each individual room. So in my case I’ve got about 14 different servers running each with the devices for that same room with a lot of devices with the same name (heating, main light, Venetian blinds, etc).. so long as you tell Siri which room you want it works well “hey Siri open the lounge window” or “hey Siri close all the Venetian blinds”. I also find this approach works a lot better for managing devices.. before when I had just a couple of server devices for all 170 or so items presented to HomeKit if I had to make a slight change to it (renaming or adding a new device or whatever) HomeKit itself would struggle a bit with it, but with just 10ish items per server modifications are a breeze.


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[Colorado4Wheeler]

14 rooms? How palatial is your mansion?!?

[durosity]

14 rooms? How palatial is your mansion?!?

14? Oh I meant 140! I live in Buckingham palace. There’s this old woman and her crazy family I let live here cos they pay good rent but I’m thinking of kicking them out!

Nah it’s not palatial at all! Perhaps zone would be a more sensible way of wording it. At present I have:

Lounge
Kitchen
Dining room
Hallway
Utility room
Downstairs loo

Landing
Master bedroom
Ensuite
Guest bedroom
Bathroom
Study
Gym
Loft

Garden
Garage
Shed
Miscellaneous for action groups and what not.

So actually 18 servers running. It also means instead of having this labelled “kitchen kettle” and having it as just “kettle” Siri doesn’t get arsey about “there’s no devices in your home called Kettle” when you ask her “turn on the kettle” instead of “turn on the kitchen kettle”.. cos i only have one bloomin kettle!

[Colorado4Wheeler]

For me I still find it easier to say 'couch' rather than 'great room couch'. I try to always put things into a 90% rule, whatever is the best method 90% of the time and I use the couch every day but controlling the master bedroom bath isn't hardly ever something I need to tell Siri to do so I don't mind giving that a longer name.

[siclark]

You have automated your couch??


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[Colorado4Wheeler]

You have automated your couch??


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[Gusten]

Thanx for all tips

I tried with multipel servers, and its working perfectly, one server per area/room

/Thanx


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[siclark]

Ugh. You guys are going to make me delete my current setup and move to one server per room. Do prefer the way it sounds like it works.


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[Colorado4Wheeler]

It works in multiple ways. Having deleted and recreated rooms and HomeKit more times than I can count (but I can only count to 77) I would recommend you do that slowly. When I decided to do that (to a much smaller degree), I just picked one room.

Don't forget that HKB has a 'Move to different server' utility in the plugin menu. For this to be effective (and it doesn't always guarantee that you won't have to redo things a bit), you create a new server and throw something on it, anything, and attach it to HomeKit. Once it works in HomeKit then use the move utility to move devices from one server to another and restart those servers, often times it will retain everything so you don't to do a massive redefinition of all devices in the app.

[Colorado4Wheeler]

Also, even if the move utility doesn't prevent you from having to move things in the app, it will prevent you from having to recreate those devices on your new servers.

Finally, keep in mind that each HKB server will take between 25 and 75MB of RAM, depending on how many devices you have, so if you have a 400 room palace like Durosity then you better have a beefy Indigo server.