Naming issues in House Assistant, formed by your suggestions

Let’s say a wise plug powers your espresso machine, and sits in your kitchen.

• Space: the room/area the good plug is in. Kitchen.
• Machine: the bodily object. Good plug 3, or a reputation you give it, like Espresso machine.
• Entity: a factor a tool can do or measure. The good plug has three entities: a change, a energy sensor and an power sensor.

Every entity has its personal title, ID, and pleasant title. So for the good plug’s energy sensor:

• Entity title: the title of that one factor. Energy.
• Entity ID: the fastened ID your automations use. sensor.kitchen_smart_plug_3_power.
• Pleasant title: a state attribute that mixes the machine title and entity title. Older playing cards and templates nonetheless use this, however we’re transferring away from it. Good plug 3 Energy.

How did we find yourself with so many names? It began merely sufficient…

Within the early days, House Assistant solely knew entities. There have been no units, areas, or flooring, so an entity’s title needed to carry all its context. To inform energy sensors aside, you’d title one “Kitchen espresso machine energy.” The neighborhood wrote complete naming technique guides to maintain them constant.

From 2018 on, House Assistant began including construction round entities. Entities belonging to at least one bodily object have been grouped collectively as a tool. Areas, flooring, and labels have been added to explain the structure of your own home. However this construction additionally launched repetition, so should you moved the espresso machine to a different room, each one among its entity names was incorrect.

To repair this, integrations began naming every entity by itself, with out the machine title. An integration named an entity for what it was, corresponding to “Energy,” and House Assistant put the machine title in entrance to indicate “Good plug 3 Energy.”

One hole remained: renaming an entity eliminated its machine title. When you renamed a wise plug’s change to “Espresso machine,” the machine’s different entities may nonetheless be displayed as “Good plug 3 Energy” and “Good plug 3 Vitality.” In consequence, a lot of you needed to rename each entity manually to remain constant.

Every of those steps made sense on the time, however collectively they left us with guidelines that didn’t all the time agree. We’ve been untangling them for a number of years, and this launch is the subsequent step.

Any more, a constant algorithm applies in all places in House Assistant, from the dashboard to the settings pages. You title every factor as soon as, for what it’s: your flooring is “Floor flooring,” your space “Kitchen,” your machine “Espresso machine,” and its entities “Energy” and “Vitality.” No title repeats one other.

House Assistant will then present context as required:

• On the Kitchen’s space web page, the realm is already clear, so the machine is listed as simply “Espresso machine,” not “Kitchen espresso machine.”
• On the Espresso machine’s machine web page, the header already names the machine and its space, so the entities are listed as simply “Energy” and “Vitality.”
• In an entity picker that lists each energy sensor in the home, every row additionally reveals the machine and space, so you’ll be able to inform them aside.
• On a dashboard card, you choose which components to indicate: entity, machine, father or mother machine, space, or flooring, within the order you want.

Some entities want no title of their very own. The plug’s change is what turns the espresso machine on and off, so will probably be proven with the machine title alone: “Espresso machine.” We name it the principle entity of the machine, and also you’ll have the ability to flip this on for any entity with the “Principal entity of the machine” change in its settings. That is why renaming the machine, reasonably than the change, offers most individuals the end result they need.

A tool product of a number of components will now get a separate baby machine for every one. For instance, an influence strip with 4 sockets turns into one machine with 4 baby units, one for every socket. Every socket can have its personal title, corresponding to “Kettle,” and its personal space, as a substitute of entities known as “Socket 3,” and so on. Put a socket in one other space, corresponding to a lamp within the eating room, and it’ll simply present as “Lamp” there, with out the ability strip’s title.

Our objective is so that you can now not want a naming scheme to maintain issues tidy. The defaults needs to be proper, and should you do wish to rename one thing you’ll solely have to do it as soon as, in a single place, as a result of no title holds a duplicate of one other. You may nonetheless title issues nevertheless you want. If an space isn’t particular sufficient, as a result of you’ve got two spotlights in a single kitchen for instance, you’ll be able to hold that element within the machine title: “Cupboard highlight” and “Countertop highlight.”

New entity IDs are constructed from these components too: since 2026.8, they embrace the realm, and should you actually need, you’ll be able to select which components go into them. So two “TV” units in several rooms get clear IDs, with out the _2.

From the 2026.11 launch, the change will present up in 4 important methods.

Playing cards, badges, and rows and not using a manually set title will present the brand new default entity title along with its context, as a substitute of the pleasant title. Once you set a reputation on a card, the title picker enables you to choose the components you need. You may all the time revert to the default with one click on. Names you’ve got already set on a card keep precisely as they’re. The remainder of House Assistant follows the identical guidelines: settings pages, the exercise log, automation descriptions, voice assistant settings, the instruments pages, and the map – in addition to the House Assistant apps for Android and iOS.

Once you rename an entity, you’ll solely want to supply a reputation for the entity half, corresponding to “Energy utilization,” nothing else. House Assistant will hold that title simply as you typed it, and add the context, such because the machine or space title, the place it’s wanted. If what you actually wish to change is the machine title, you have to to rename the machine as a substitute.

From this launch, Z-Wave, MQTT, and ESPHome will assist the kid units described above, as will some Tuya units and some different integrations. Assist for Matter and ZHA is in progress, with extra integrations to comply with. In consequence the unique father or mother machine will stay, however its structural components – like a number of shops on an influence strip – will probably be cut up into baby units which might be organized individually from each other.

Many customized playing cards and templates nonetheless use the pleasant title. We’ll hold it for backward compatibility for now, however plan to deprecate the pleasant title and ultimately take away it. We’ll announce any removing forward of time, so card authors and template customers can replace first.

What to anticipate after the replace, and a few issues chances are you’ll wish to look out for.

Current entity IDs won’t change. Automations, scripts, scenes, and dashboards discuss with entities by their ID, in order that they’ll hold discovering the correct entity. Solely the names you see could change, as described beneath.

On replace, House Assistant will migrate the names of entities you renamed previously. As we talked about initially, most ought to come by means of as you’d anticipate, however some could look totally different. It depends upon how the title begins:

1. If an entity title already begins with its machine title, corresponding to “Espresso machine energy utilization” on a espresso machine, the machine half will probably be eliminated – so the entity will now be named “Energy utilization,” and present as “Espresso machine Energy utilization,” a lot as earlier than.
2. If it doesn’t already begin with its machine title, nothing adjustments besides House Assistant will add the correct context the place wanted – so a change you renamed “Espresso machine” on the machine “Good plug 3” will present as “Good plug 3 Espresso machine.”

If that second case seems odd, it’s fast to repair. Rename the machine (on this case the good plug) to “Espresso machine” and activate “Principal entity of the machine” for the change. Then it’s going to present as simply “Espresso machine” in all places. In case you have time, it may additionally be a superb second to take space names out of your entity and machine names. House Assistant will show the correct content material the place wanted.

Constructed-in playing cards will allow you to compose the title from components: drag entity, machine, father or mother machine, space, and flooring into the order you need, or kind your personal customized title. Some customized playing cards should still learn the pleasant title, so may present a distinct title than the built-in playing cards, and that title will change when you rename the entity or its machine. Set the title on the cardboard to repair it, or replace the cardboard as soon as its writer helps the brand new naming.

In case your templates nonetheless use pleasant names, for instance to indicate entity names in notifications, these names could differ from what House Assistant reveals, and alter when you rename the entity or its machine. To choose solely the components you want, use entity_name(), device_name() and area_name() as a substitute.

We all know naming is private, and this variation touches each set up – even when for a lot of customers it received’t be noticeable. It received’t be excellent for each setup, however we’re assured it’s a change for the higher. Over the approaching releases, we’ll hold transferring extra integrations to baby units and serving to customized card authors undertake the brand new naming.

To everybody who examined the 2026.4 beta, reported points, and informed us truthfully what you thought: thanks. You made this variation higher.