Names, am I the only one

[greencat (Mike)]

Love my Smartthings, love my Alexa, and love automation. But I am having trouble coming up with different names for the devices.

For example in our bedroom is a overhead light on a switch and 3 lamps with zigbee bulbs.

Does anyone have a naming scheme?

[rontalley]

Yeah, with three table lights in the same room, I can see how that might be a problem.

I use this naming method:

The Kitchen Lights are grouped using Trend Setter. I can turn them all on/off by saying kitchen or individually by calling the specific name.

Also, I don’t have to say, “Kitchen Island Lights”…I can just say Island Lights.

Because I have three set of recessed lights throughout the house, I have to say, Kitchen Recessed Lights.

Finally, you can create a group in the Alexa App to name any light anything for simplicity.

[jkp]

How do you organize your devices? Naming conventions? (2018)

Since there is no way to order your devices on the smart things app, how do you guys organize things? Do you have naming conventions on your devices like ‘Motion - Front Door’ or ‘Light - Family Room’? I have 30 or so devices now and it is getting difficult in the app at this point. Hopefully they add some features that allow it to be organized but until then…How do you organize/group all your devices?

Looking for Standard SmartThings Naming Taxonomy Recommendations (2015)

Hi folks - relatively new ST user here (few months playing around) and have had some great experiences hooking things up, making some rules, etc. One of the things that I noticed is the diverse strategy that folks have for naming, grouping, aligning their devices to modes, etc. For example, when you add a bunch of dimmable light switches, they all show up with the same device name making it difficult to know where they are. Rinse, repeat for other device types such as bulbs, etc. I’ve been experimenting with prefixing the names with the location (i.e., Kitchen, Deck, Bedroom A, etc.). But before I start spending a lot of cycles jumping hoops, thought I’d ask Does anyone have any standing guidance on taxonomy for setting up ST from scratch for newbs? The OOB experience seems a bit ba…

Naming Devices

Does anyone have any suggestions on naming all their devices in smartthings. On several occasions when I try to use Alexa, I get the response “There are more than 1 devices using that name” type of response. Just wondering if someone came up with a nice fluid naming convention.

[Gutheinz (Dave Gutheinz)]

Using the example of three lamps and one overhead, I would name based on position of the end device facing into the room at the door. (You could also base it on where you most often control the device (like from where I sit in the Den).) Assume Master Bedroom:

Master Left
Master Center
Master Right
Master Ceiling

This groups by location and also by location position. Easy to remember verbally and logical.

[Roguetech (John Roguetech)]

In the way that you mean, no, I don’t have much problem. but I don’t have many smart lights as of yet. The issue I have is with the separate name scheme between ST, Hue and Google Home (or Alexa). Doesn’t matter what they’re called in ST, so I use a specific naming convention that works well for coding and natural sorting ("!Light - Dining 1"). The names in Hue don’t matter either, but they need to be grouped into rooms for dimmer switches, so they could be named accordingly (“bedroom 2” rather than “nightstand”). The only names that matter are for voice control. But in Home (dunno with Alexa), you can create multiple names for each device, like “porch”, “stoop”, “deck” and “outside”. This is mostly only important for guests to not feel like they need to know the secret code-words.*

Personally, I go with location (“porch”), but you could also consider function. There’s no reason you couldn’t name lights and rooms like you would the routines, like “leaving”, “reading”, “cooking”, “good night”/“sleeping”, etc. Just a thought.

* There should be a way in Google and Alexa to prompt for more information. For instance, if you say “Turn the lights”, it could then ask follow-up questions. “Which room?” … “The porch”. And, continue to prompt, until it knows what to do. “Outside in front, back or both?” One of these days, I’m going to figure out how to… find a friend to do that for me.