context-aware.md

Context / Device aware attributes

Context-aware

You can use context-aware attributes to give different names for the same entity in different groups or views. For example if you have a Yard Light and a Yard Sensor in a group named Yard, you could name the entities as Light and Sensor in the group only by using context-aware friendly_name attribute. This will also work in views (view: yes groups). In order to rename an entity in the default view, use default_view view name (even if you didn't define such a view).

Example:

homeassistant:
  customize_glob:
    "*.*":
      custom_ui_state_card: state-card-custom-ui  
    light.yard_light:
      friendly_name: Yard Light
      group:
        group.yard:
          friendly_name: Light
    sensor.yard_sensor:
      friendly_name: Yard Sensor
      group:
        group.yard:
          friendly_name: Sensor

group:
  yard:
    entities:
      - light.yard_light
      - sensor.yard_sensor

Device-aware attributes

You can also change attributes per device. For example:

homeassistant:
  customize_glob:
    "*.*":
      custom_ui_state_card: state-card-custom-ui  
    device_tracker.joe_phone:
      friendly_name: Joe phone
      device:
        joe_mobile:
          friendly_name: My phone

The name of each device is set in CustomUI section of config pane.

If both context-aware and device-aware attributes are specified - device-aware will be applied first and then context-aware, possibly overriding device-aware attributes. Those can also be nested:

homeassistant:
  customize_glob:
    "*.*":
      custom_ui_state_card: state-card-custom-ui  
    device_tracker.joe_phone:
      friendly_name: Joe phone
      group:
        group.phones:
          friendly_name: Joe
      device:
        joe_mobile:
          friendly_name: My phone
          group:
            phones:
              friendly_name: My

group:
  phones:
    entities:
      - device_tracker.joe_phone

Using Regular Expressions

The name of the group / device can be a Regular Expression. For example:

homeassistant:
  customize:
    device_tracker.joe_phone:
      friendly_name: Joe phone
      group:
        # This will catch both group.phones_boys and group.phones_girls groups
        group.phone.*:
          friendly_name: Joe

Note that this is a Regular Expression syntax, not Glob syntax used by customize-glob.

Context-aware hide

In case you want a device to be a member of a group but not show in the group - use context-aware hidden attribute. Unlike the regular hidden: true which hides the device in all views, context-aware hidden: true will hide the devices in specified groups only.

homeassistant:
  customize:
  ...
    light.yard_light:
      group:
        group.yard:
          hidden: true

group:
  yard:
    entities:
      - light.yard_light
      ...

Other uses

Context or Device aware attributes also work for custom attributes, like hide_control, show_last_changed, and others.