Device or Scene aliases

[odog]

I have the current version working great with my ISY.

If you have 40+ devices it quickly becomes necessary to establish some kind of logical naming scheme in the ISY. I am also integrating with my ELK security system that imposes a 15 character limit on device and scene names.

As a consequence my devices and scenes are named something like "lv.6.lv.4cn.n" . This makes it easy for me to figure out where each device is physically and what it controls when I am creating programs and scenes.

iLinc however, is the only interface to control my insteon stuff where I actually see these names. As such I would like to be able to have a name internal to iLinc that maps to a device or scene. So that, for example, when I look at the "Favorite Scenes" listing, I see something like "Start Movie" or "Bedtime" instead of "s.lv.6.a.movie" and "s.su.8.b.dwnoff".

Maybe a text field next to the Favorite Scene toggle switch called "Displayed name" or something. Does this make sense?

[AdminWes]

Hi odog,

This absolutly makes sense. I'm at the very end of testing the 2.1 release and about to release to Apple. I will add this feature request to the next update beyond 2.1.

Thanks,
Wes

[chilli_pepper]

Hi,

Is this feature still being considered? I just downloaded the Mobilinc HD version and have the same naming convention issue. Also, could alias' be saved when sync'ed to iTunes to my ipad and iphone could benefit from alias names being configured once.

Thanks,
--c

[AdminWes]

Hi chilli_pepper,

Thanks for checking back in. Yes, this features has been requested by multiple folks and I've got a possible solution in place using the "Notes" field in the ISY. If you right-click on a device in the ISY Java console and select Notes here you can enter any text specific to that device. The solution we are working on would look here for a particular string (will publish when feature is ready) that tells MobiLinc to override the name property with this alternate name found here in the notes. By keeping the alias here in the ISY, all devices connecting to that ISY will receive the same alias information.

Wes

[chilli_pepper]

Has this feature been enabled yet? I'm at a difficult point between Mobilinc and the ISY99 Admin Console. If I standardize the "Name" field with simple names that are easy to use with Mobilinc, I have multiple (i.e.) "Lamp Lights" and "Vanity Lights". This makes finding the exact device in the Admin Console difficult since it appears to only support 4 default columns of information. Keeping the "Name" field descriptive and specific leads to ugly looking paddle names and my Wife is not keen on things being too techie (neither am I).

If there is a different naming strategy I should be using to accomplish these goals without any program changes, I'm willing to change...

Thanks,
--C

[AdminWes]

Are you using Folders in the Admin Console at all? I'd really recommend that you use folders as rooms in the house to organize your devices and scenes. That way you can keep the simple names for your devices and scenes and be able to find them quickly in Admin Console and MobiLinc by navigating your setup using folders.

[chilli_pepper]

I am. Where things get confusing is when the action is located in 1 room and the device is activated in another, or when you have 2 or more insteon switches supporting 1 light. If you have an issue with 1 of the switches, which one? You can find it but only through digging through the notes or location attributes from the Admin Console.

I posted a comment on the ISY-99 forum about adding columns to the default table view...no luck there too.

It would be a nice to have capability to be able to pin the label to the location field (preferred) or notes field from this thread (2nd preferred).

Thanks for the quick response.
--C

[AdminWes]

I've been thinking about this today and I'm not sure I'm coming up with a solution that makes sense. Here are my thoughts:

Let's work with Folders for just a second. If you create several folders representing rooms that gets you most of the way there for both the Admin Console and MobiLinc. The problem comes in when you have a three way switch all controlling one load device.

What I've seen done in this case is the home owner will hide or remove all but one device in MobiLinc. From a user perspective hitting one switch causes the scene to activate, so all you need is one device visible from MobiLinc. You could rename the other devices to something that makes them unique to Admin Console and find-able without sacrificing usability in MobiLinc.

Another way I've seen users optimize the MobiLinc experience is they will only use scenes and Favorites. They will hide or ignore everything under My Devices. By using scenes you abstract away the device concept and organize your home with folders where the action is taking place regardless of where the device is located. This approach makes more sense from an experience viewpoint ignoring the device specifics.

Does any of this help or is there a use case where the Location field from the Notes would provide additional help in MobiLinc?

Wes

[chilli_pepper]

I've started down the path of using scenes in lieu of devices and it looks promising. It means adding more artifacts into the ISY but probably for the better long term. I'm thinking about taking it one step further and naming the load device as the common name, and using a syntax of <DeviceName>@<Location> as the name for supporting devices to the particular lamp or outlet.
1) it will minimize having to dig through location data when troubleshooting.
2) for Mobilinc it will simplify device cleanup for deleting the redundant devices - look for long ugly names

I'll let you know how it works out in a few days.

--C

[AdminWes]

Excellent, sounds good.

Wes