Vacuum segment discussions

[lusty cloud]

Continuation of #1346947552905531504 message

@austere axle

[austere axle]

I guess I fundamentally disagree that having this step there makes things more complex for users. I think it actually makes it simpler and more clear.

[lusty cloud]

We have a default dashboard. Default exposed entities for voice

[austere axle]

The only problem right now is that it's somewhat tedious to fill it up at first.

[austere axle]

Default exposed entities for voice
Yeah, we definitely should kill those. We've been talking about this for a while.

If you stay with all the automatically exposed entities, and don't ever clean them up, your voice experience will be really bad.

[vale charm]

I would just preselect them. This gives smart defaults and user control.

We should make sure that we on preselect the exact names. And when there are multiple segments match one area, we shouldn't preselect.

And this way the maintainer gets also the correct mental model of the mapping.

[lethal shadow]

@vale charm You are anyway working on this idea of having smarter dedicated wizzard when you add a device.
So eventually adding any type of device will provide more contextual information about how to use it.

I agree with @lusty cloud , i think (eventually), you add a vacuum, we show you an area mapping based on assumption and similar names and you click next and you're done.

The only question remaining is how to deal with pre-exisiting vacuums, which are all the vacuums today

And we keep coming back to the same old discussion:

• We have ways to communicate when things needs to be repaired.
• We have no way to communicate when we're adding value (Hey we automatically mapped your area so that you can clear your room, have fun, review them here)

Which is very annoying for a long time 😄

Since we don't have a way to communicate "positive" things we do for the user, the question is always
Does the risk of making mistakes outweighs the annoyance of a repair

I do feel that mapping areas is not dangerous in any way - So I would map them automatically for now.

We definitely need to work on some sort of notification center where HA can finally talk to you for more than screaming repairs and updates.

[austere axle]

The Core team decided that repair is not the right tool to signal that information to users, so here's the PR removing it:
https://github.com/home-assistant/core/pull/164259
Users will need to go to entity settings and do their mapping there.

[kindred gust]

OK, that needs cleanup from frontend too then

[austere axle]

Yes, but it's just one line

[lusty cloud]

Absolutely not. The defaults can never be broken

Can we now have a default mapping used when not configured by user

So that clean area has some chance off working

[lusty cloud]

I dont think we should do a wizard unless its terribly important, like voice. Imaging pairing roborocj and getting 3 wizards in a row for your three vacuums

[lethal shadow]

We will provide wizzard / setup assistant when we add devices
@quasi narwhal has a complete opportunity we will propose about this

Today we can't even ask you if the contact sensor you bought is stuck on a window or a garage door

We need to set devices the right way

[lusty cloud]

Sure, then it might be more important. But vacuum mapping seems to not cross that threshold

[lethal shadow]

I know you're absolutely terrified of wizards 🧙🏻‍♂️ and always come up with these extra complicated use-case like someone having 3 vacuum cleaners (?)
But making thing by default is absolutely amazing if we can just review them

The wizzard for a vacuum cleaner should not be 17 steps long.
It could simply be a confirmation screen telling you "Everything is integrated, we mapped all your room for you 16 vacuum cleaners, review them here"

This is about trust on the system basically

I fwe want to make Home Assitat feel more friendly, we need people to trust the choice we make for them

[lusty cloud]

I have two. One per floor so it's not so weird i think

[austere axle]

Not in this release. And I don't think we should ever do some heuristic in the background hidden from users. What we should have is a "new device wizard", exactly as JLo said. The repair was only meant as a substitute until we have it.

[gilded jasper]

Chiming in to say that I have three at my house. My parents have five. It's common where I live for users to have 2 or 3 (1 per floor and sometimes a garage). That many wizards would definitely be a super awkward experience.

[austere axle]

Just so you understand the alternative here is that we do a mapping in the background, that is likely to be half-broken and so you need to check it manually anyway.

[lethal shadow]

We do not even need many wizard and it's not for now

It can be a single confirmation page at the end just telling you "We did stuff"
Review here or continue

It does not have to be a big deal and we have a full team responsible of making sure it stays user friendly at the end fo the day 😄

[gilded jasper]

I wonder... Is it possible to do the mapping review once? Basically show all of the vacuum areas from each vacuum and their mapping on the same screen. That would allow avoiding a separate wizard per vacuum.

[kindred gust]

No it is more, the dialog is not needed anymore then 🙂

[lethal shadow]

Yeah yeah I just want to make sure we're discussing about the same thing, the review is a future thing

[austere axle]

I think you are confused about what we're talking about. It's just reverting this https://github.com/home-assistant/frontend/pull/29800.

[lusty cloud]

but that's the thing, right now we are having a default broken situation.

User sets up roborock, gets 3 vacuums.
Then wants to use clean area action using an automation, voice or via dashboard.
It fails. Nothing.

Instead:
We could have it partially work for mapped segments.

Either way:
We need to have good error message, and ideally, in automation/dashboard, when error happens, a link to configure the segments.

Guide the user to be successful

[austere axle]

That would be even more confusing, because it would work partially and ignore the areas that are not mapped. We don't really have "partial errors" as a concept.

[lusty cloud]

I think that if you pick 2 areas to clean, and 1 is not mapped, we should raise an error. So partial = full