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The device friendly name


jack.daniels

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Hi, just an idea for future updates:

To let a user to specify any device's friendly name (to use in scenes, VD)

Every new device has ID (its r/o property) used to address in scenes etc. But in big system the ID tells nothing, and its very hard to operate with numbers.

I read the forum, there is HomeTable workaround for this, but IMO the best would be to have editable device friendly name in device properties.

Lets say it will assign "device.<id>" by default. Also would be great to add a few functions to lua framework like: fibaro:GetValueByName("<device_name>","value")

And let users to use device_name as triggers.

BR

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Hi @jack.daniels,

 

Your suggestion sounds very nice, but unfortunately it is not applicable because as soon as user can define name that can cause many problems, like same names for different devices, etc. On the other hand to implement it right way, it would take vast resourced since then developers must incorporate checking of the names that user is defining to warn him if name is already used or contain unacceptable characters. What happens then if device has to be re-included? 

 

As I can see you already know HomeTable solution. Why it is not acceptable for you? HomeTable not only provides to use user defined names for devices ID's but also speeds up needed corrections to the code if any device changed it's ID due to re-inclusion.

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  • Namespace problem solving very easy.

    With HomeTable, we still have to keep device id's in mind. (to fill the table, or to find device on the panel)

    With frienfly name field visible this will be easy.

     

    btw, @Sankotronic you doing very good with scenes/VD. May be you found the efficient way for this:

    In a big house we have many groups with many lamps in a groupe. Would be cool to make a scene notifying when some lamp(s) dies and need to replace it.

    When lamp dying, the entire group eats less energy, so can detect it.

    What whould you say?

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    On 13/11/2017 at 5:01 PM, Sankotronic said:

    HomeTable not only provides to use user defined names for devices ID's but also speeds up needed corrections to the code if any device changed it's ID due to re-inclusion.

     

    Any solution for using HomeTable in triggers? Triggers are the only place where I have the IDs now...

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    1 hour ago, redsave said:

     

    Any solution for using HomeTable in triggers? Triggers are the only place where I have the IDs now...

     

    Hi @redsave

     

    There can be no substitutes for devices ID in scene header but I use them a lot in the code too, so HomeTable saves me from modifying that code. All I have to do is correct scene headers what is much less to do. Your idea with names is great, no doubt in that, but implementation can be tricky, plus we all know how Fibaro is dealing with users ideas and requests ;-) It is better to have HomeTable now, than some device naming feature who knows when.

     

    On 11/13/2017 at 5:31 PM, jack.daniels said:

    btw, @Sankotronic you doing very good with scenes/VD. May be you found the efficient way for this:

    In a big house we have many groups with many lamps in a groupe. Would be cool to make a scene notifying when some lamp(s) dies and need to replace it.

    When lamp dying, the entire group eats less energy, so can detect it.

    What whould you say?

     

    Hi @jack.daniels,

     

    That is not bad idea for latest Fibaro switches that also have power consumption measuring, but unfortunately it is not easy doable with dimmers 2 and not possible with Fibaro relay modules that don't have power metering. Or do you have some other way in mind?

     

     

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  • 1 hour ago, Sankotronic said:

    That is not bad idea for latest Fibaro switches that also have power consumption measuring, but unfortunately it is not easy doable with dimmers 2 and not possible with Fibaro relay modules that don't have power metering. Or do you have some other way in mind?

    Yes, for the devices suports power mesurements (like Fibaro swtch/dimmer 2). Would be really cool to have such usefull tool.

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    On 11/13/2017 at 5:31 PM, jack.daniels said:

     

    btw, @Sankotronic you doing very good with scenes/VD. May be you found the efficient way for this:

    In a big house we have many groups with many lamps in a groupe. Would be cool to make a scene notifying when some lamp(s) dies and need to replace it.

    When lamp dying, the entire group eats less energy, so can detect it.

    What whould you say?

     

    I have a device for this ... my eyes :)

     

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  • 5 minutes ago, Sjekke said:

    I have a device for this ... my eyes :)

    This is not much effective for a big house with many light groups (inside/outside)

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    44 minutes ago, jack.daniels said:

    This is not much effective for a big house with many light groups (inside/outside)

     

    I only use the light when I need it. Can be different in your situation.

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    • 3 weeks later...
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  • On 13.11.2017 at 6:01 PM, Sankotronic said:

    as soon as user can define name that can cause many problems, like same names for different devices, etc

    Global variables is a good example showing it's very easy to hadle unique names.

     

    @Fibaro Team, this is very imprtant feature - i have ~ 10-15 devices right now, and its already big headache to find needed ID.

    Hear us and add this small improvement that could change everyting. TY

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    3 hours ago, jack.daniels said:

    @Fibaro Team, this is very imprtant feature - i have ~ 10-15 devices right now, and its already big headache to find needed ID.

    Hear us and add this small improvement that could change everyting. TY

     

    Hi @jack.daniels,

     

    you have a point here and I do agree with you regarding your request and also I give my vote for your request!

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    On ‎13‎.‎11‎.‎2017 at 5:31 PM, jack.daniels said:

    Would be cool to make a scene notifying when some lamp(s) dies and need to replace it.

    When lamp dying, the entire group eats less energy, so can detect it.

    What whould you say?

     

    make scene checking every minute or so (to trigger at power change is useless), create device group with all lamps you wish to check and sum deviceID.properties.power of all these lamps. When changed, do notification. You might use as well e.g. load error, overload detection, voltage drop, surge detection and hardware error (if they supported by devices you currently using).

     

    8 hours ago, jack.daniels said:

    i have ~ 10-15 devices right now, and its already big headache to find needed ID.

     

    really ? :? 

     

    On ‎11‎.‎11‎.‎2017 at 11:30 AM, jack.daniels said:

    but IMO the best would be to have editable device friendly name in device properties.

     

    this field exists since years ... just use it!

     

     

    Please login or register to see this attachment.

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    and can be used for what so ever

     

    Please login or register to see this code.

     

    5a24873d72502_usereditable3.png.194aaf95920467f9a246886864f554ad.png

     

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  • Hi, this is just another workaround. Same as the HomeTable

    Still have to manually list all devices to find correct id for triggers

    the best would be

    Please login or register to see this code.

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    you asked for user editable field, you got an answer that this is already there. You wish to find out easier the id in trigger section of lua editor? well, it is already there, simply use left menu to navigate and select the device and the value you wish to trigger on. So simple, no idea why you need additional names here. I think you should spend some time on learning what already there before you start asking next time for "new features" 

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  • You are right, I am new to Fibaro configuring, but I can see very clear whats missing. Every inclusion device ID is changed, and need to edit entire home configuration.

    And when you multiple it on 15, 20,100 devices - this small thing become a monster problem.

     

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    @jack.daniels I understand what you are saying. All I can say "names in headers" and "names in code" has been asked before, at least once per year, over the last five years. I do not know when or if they are going to implement that. So we have to work around the problem.

     

    I have more than 100 physical devices. Here is how I deal with this.

     

    I use krikroffs toolkit to export all my scenes to my PC

     

     

    So I can search device IDs. Then I manually edit sceles onmy HC. I get a human readable backup as a bonus and I use GIT to store versions of changes.

     

    Actually, this is a little white lie, I wrote my own export routine because I am on macOS.

     

    Have you ever tried this excellent toolkit?

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  • 23 minutes ago, petergebruers said:

    Have you ever tried this excellent toolki

    No, I have missed it

    Will try for sure

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  • The app looks convenient. Will dig it more. For my first try to Publish lua code changes it made my HCL - 503 Service Unavailable and stopped all services on the controller.

     

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    Guest FredrikKarlsson
    On 2017-11-17 at 1:12 PM, Sankotronic said:

    There can be no substitutes for devices ID in scene header but I use them a lot in the code too, so HomeTable saves me from modifying that code. All I have to do is correct scene headers what is much less to do. Your idea with names is great, no doubt in that, but implementation can be tricky, plus we all know how Fibaro is dealing with users ideas and requests ;-) It is better to have HomeTable now, than some device naming feature who knows when.

     

    I have to confess that while the whole HomeTable concept is appealing in theory, it (for me at least) does not provide an as clear advantage in practice as one could have assumed. For two reasons.

     

    First, you still need to have IDs on hand, since you want them to trigger scenes maybe. This is what has been discussed here already, so lets not go too much into that.

     

    Second, you really should start setting up your HomeTable usage right from the start for it to be as productive as it could be. I've got around 100 devices in my setup, and you can imagine how tempted I was to define a HomeTable structure manually for the system.

    You need to be able to remember the names in the structure then, and > 100 names becomes unmanageable quite quickly (for me). An option is to use the autogeneration script on this forum that builds the structure based on your description of devices. That works well, but you can really only use it once, because if you for some reason or another want to rename one of your devices - for instance "Kitchen lights" becomes "Kitchen table lights" because you decided to add another z-wave controlled light in the kitchen (which will likely happen to me quite soon) then you cannot use the auto script anymore and have to go back to manual editing of your HomeTable.

    Because, if you do use the script, you break your code basically in the same way as a change in device ID does since the device label in your HomeTable will not be the same anymore - and you need to go through all your scenes and change them. 

    Like you would have to do if your ID changed due to re-inclusion.

     

    So, what i am saying is that if you are not using HomeTable in a productive way right now already, and is very happy with it, I suggest instead you try to do a bit of structured coding.

    Please then do the old programming trick and define variables with readable names in the beginning of your code - like this:

     

    Please login or register to see this code.

    This makes it very easy to update the scene if you need to have a new device in there, and you can easily make sure that the %%properties  device IDs are correct, because they are given human readable names right after the header. You can even define a local variable right after the header that you never use later in the code, just in the trigger, as a reminder that this is the device ID that you should use in your scene. And, as a bonus, you don't need to have your HC2 parse a string as JSON - parsing is a non-trivial task and does require some extra computing power.

     

    Of course, you should do whatever you want in your code, and if HomeTable works great for you then please do not change code that works. I just felt the need to point out that if your are finding HomeTable setup and management non-trivial and a bit too much hard work (especially in relation to triggers, which you still need to give IDs for), then there may be simpler solutions to the problem.

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