lusty patrol
As I add more and more devices I've been worrying about how to name and ID them to make things easy for the future. For example, if I have 3 contact sensors that I had previously used in automations that have been demoted to the supply cabinet for a future project. When the day comes I want to use one and it's already registered in HA, how do I grab the one I want out of the mix? How to identify a specific one?
A couple possibilities:
- Actuate/use the device and observe the activity in HA - this would work, it's not terribly clever and could take longer than it should, but it would eventually be effective
- Look for a existing unique identifier, maybe there is a serial number or some other identifier that is also present in the device attribute or details
Neither of these seem like great options. I've thought about writing a 5 or 6 character unique id on the device with a sharpie (ultra fine tip!) then using this same value as a prefix in the device Name and it's entity IDs. I could also use part of a unique ID from devices when available, for example Lutron PD-3PCL smart dimmers seem to have a serial number (012A5951, 086CBB48).
Anyway, I can't be the first person to think of this so what do you all do?
short tundra