homeassistant

'turn on carl and johnny'

Using a voice assistant (like Google assistant), these understand how to treat plurals, so if you use the same base name numbered 1 & 2 you can say: turn on the (base name) lights and both come on without having to try to define scenes or explicit device groups or links. They can still be controlled independently, so I number in a sequence relative distance to the 'entrance' to that room, or left to right, you might want clockwise.

I use names related to the room, area or object, like: entrance light, dining table light, craft area light, fan light, hallway light, tv light, desk light, bed light, reading light, kitchen sink light. Numbered 1 & 2 if needed since usually want them on together.

Or may be further refined by type like: night light, down light, spot light, string light, stand light, lamp, bulb, LED etc.

Hope that helps with a few ideas?

I use groups. Office, Living Room, Bedroom, and Kitchen are all groups of multiple lights. But the lights inside the groups are all named like Bob, Karl, or Kathy or something. It works for me, but certainly isn’t for everyone. Lol

I named mine after where they're pointed, such as "Sofa" and "TV".

Mine are where they are stationed:

Front Door Lamp, Patio Door Lamp, Desk Lamp and Bedroom Lamp. We don't have many obviously:)

So, left of couch as you look at it is next to front door so light there, other side, by patio, you guessed it patio light. And the rest are pretty much bland like that.

I have a voice assistant in every room so it can automatically recognize what lights I mean when I say “turn off the lights”. Controlling individual lights can be a little annoying so my Living Room Left and Right lamps are just called Fred and George.

Mine are where they are stationed:

Front Door Lamp, Patio Door Lamp, Desk Lamp and Bedroom Lamp. We don't have many obviously:)

So, left of couch as you look at it is next to front door so light there, other side, by patio, you guessed it patio light. And the rest are pretty much bland like that.

Name of the room + number.

I'll give the human readable name a bit more info like if it's a fan (then it's 'Kitchen Fan 1', 'Kitchen Fan 2', etc...), but I'll usually make a group and expose the group to voice and the group would be based on the human name (Kitchen Fan). For most rooms though, I only really care about the room itself, so, "turn off the kitchen lights" is all that's really needed and that's handled by the zones.

You could try “north light” “east light” etc…

I primarily use groups by room and floor. Since I only ever use groups for voice, for individual lights I don't worry about brevity. I usually describe the fixture they're in or type of light. Like I have "Standing Lamp Top", "standing lamp side", "living room candle #", "kitchen downlight #". The only semi creative name I have is "Ziggy" for these sorta zigzaggy adjustable lamps.

John, Paul, George and Ringo. But really it's just a combination of groups for daily life and then I try to name each bulb with as explicit but short as possible.

How I name things depends on what angle I'm looking at it from. Within HA, everything is named ... which looks something like light.livingroom.overhead.1.

When I expose it to my voice assistant (Alexa in my case), they are usually grouped and are named something that easy to say and remember like Livingroom Overhead.

I tried to name them what we actually call them when we refer to them.