Dashboard Tile Request - Device Name Customization

What if it was exposed in the Dashboard JSON and could be edited there?

I don't particularly like doing that editing in the device page and I have all the Device Names setup with the actual device name . . . something I like.

My use case is a bit different. I have a complex device type (Pool controller) with many attributes (water temp, air temp, Heater on/off, pool/spa mode, Pump Speed, etc). The dashboard nicely allows me to create separate tiles for each of these, but they all display the same device name "Pool Control".

Allowing tile names to be overridden would solve this, and I'm also okay with editing the JSON, at least as a stopgap. Thanks!

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As for the Hub UI, there will also be improvements eventually to how devices are presented down the road as well.

I would love to see a way to either suppress displaying Device Name in the Devices list, or else to toggle between listing devices by Name or Label. I find the current UI somewhat wasteful in terms of screen space since two separate lines are used to display the Label and Name, and I only ever find myself wanting to sort/search by Label. (But I imagine there are scenarios where Name would be more useful, which is why I like the idea of a toggle between them.)

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I second this. Customizable Labels will help distinguish multiple tiles of one device.

Also easier to make fun names that don't fit well in a device list. example: Device Label "Cat Feeder Switch" however on the tile I would rather have "Feed the beasts" or something like that.

Either I don't know what I am doing, or I am putting in a request. Not sure which?

Some of my tiles don't have names, or the label on the tile is simply something like "thermostat". There are multiple attributes for my thermostat including "outdoor temp", "outdoor humidity", "indoor humidity" and so on. Same with power monitoring plugs I circled, there is no distinction between amps, power, energy, and so on. Some things don't have any units, like a percentage, for example.

For the thermostat, I am using the Total Comfort API driver found here. GitHub - HubitatCommunity/HoneywellThermo-TCC The funny thing is the data shows up on the device properties page (second picture), so I know Hubitat can "see" these items and they are correctly labeled as to which item is which.

There are other examples, but the thermostat was an easy one to pick on. Tank Utility propane level, Rheem water heater, and other things are affected. These tiles with issues have data mostly taken from the "attribute" section of the dash tile editor, but not everything is.

Some of these are built in drivers, and some are community drivers and apps. For example the Zooz power switch is shown in the pictures below with the "0.000" and no units. It should have said "0.000 Watts"

So can this be fixed by me, or is it on the hidden side of Hubitat? Allowing editing of the tiles would be a way to fix this.

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Just want to be able to use a customer label for dashboard tiles. Let's say you have a dashboard for your Family Room and have a bunch of devices named Family Room Fan Light, Family Room Ceiling Fan, Family Room Table Lamp, etc... On the Family Room dashboard you might want to rename these to Fan Light, Ceiling Fan, Table Lamp, etc.

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@patrick - I'd like this as well if possible!

In my case I wish to create a dashboard dedicated to my entertainment system. So as an example, I want to create a button for each input on my receiver. (TV, Xbox, cable, etc). The virtual button device allows for multiple buttons (1-5 in my case) but in the dashboard there's no way to rename them. They are all named input selector.

Also I have a multiple dashboards. And I want to be able to use different names for the same device depending on the dashboard. I don't need the lights on the living room dashboard to say living room light. I want to rename it, in the dashboard left light, right light. But in the home dashboard they need to be named per room

Allowing us to create a custom label for each tile would fix these issues.

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Unfortunately MIA

This should be easy to fix...

I have two thermostats, for two HVAC systems. One upstairs, the other downstairs. The T-stats both have humidity sensors. The built-in Thermostat tile doesn't display humidity. I don't want it to, that would be too crowded. But I do want to display that value on the dashboard. That works almost fine, using the Humidity template (a separate request would be for custom templates). However, the tile looks kinda like:

55%
Downstairs

(I made the device label "Downstairs" instead of "Honeywell T6 Pro Thermostat" which is the name).

Well it doesn't tell me what is 55% upstairs. Is that % battery remaining somewhere up there? I know what it is, since I put it there, but how would I expect my wife to have any idea what that is? If we could make a custom tile title.

In the meantime I have to use custom CSS (thanks @markus).

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Couldn’t you use the option to override device units and then enter % humidity, %RH or something like that?

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Yes--that would be an option. But '% humidity' is a lot longer than '%' so it can be a problem for layout. '% R.H.' would be better, but I'm pretty sure my wife would have no idea what that means. If the unit line-breaks, it's really ugly, which means more custom CSS anyway...

@patrick, Any updates for us on Dashboard tile name overrides? In your post of Apr 19 you alluded to enhancements "somewhere down the road", Many of us have mentioned the challenge presented by a single device with many attributes, and the desire to be able to override the name that appears on a dashboard tile. Even a low-tech solution like editing the JSON would be more than sufficient.

Anything coming soon?

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Patrick no longer works for Hubitat. I am not sure who took over his duties.

Thank-you @neonturbo, Do you know if there is a more formalized way of submitting feature requests or tracking these things? Patrick had posted about some features coming soon that were of interest to many of us.

Thanks!

There is no public tracker. Hubitat surely has an internal one, but I don't know who handles that, or dashboard development.

The forum seems to be the best place to ask for things as of now.

(until this can be done in HE)

This can be done in [RELEASE] smartly v1.07 - dash header themes, 3rd party auto-patching, tons of new mods, tile color picker. Additionally there were some suggestions of overriding units labels for humidity tiles. This can also be done, as it supports attribute unit labels (and custom icons in case anyone wanted that).

Apparently Rome wasn't built in 2 years either..

My Master Bathroom has vanity lights above the his/her sinks. Total of 6 bulbs. Instead of using dimmable bulbs, I opted to create a virtual button & using the Button Controller I set it up so that Full Bright is all 6 Bulbs On, Medium Brightness Bulbs 2, 4, 6 are On, and Low Brightness Bulbs 3 & 4 are On (the boss of the house likes his option, and uses it during her bath, as the light is focused on the main portion of the bathroom, but light is dim toward the bathtub) .. Additionally, I have setup so that certain bulbs, 1,2,3 turn on over one sink, and 4,5,6 turn on over the other

However because of this, all 3 buttons (for Low, Medium, High) in the Dashboard now just say "Master Bathroom Button" because there no custom label/name option. Or even an option to remove the forced labeled so the user could just use an Icon to indicated the buttons purpose.

The dashboard function/ability is seriously lack luster. It seems whom ever is behind Hubitat has a one track focus; "Users should use the system/software as I do" .. Reading through many of these posts about the dashboard, so many long time users try to push folks into using physical (smart) switches, and away from the dashboard. Frankly, I don't want to go around the home having to replace 20+ (several multi-way) light switches, when I can just stick a cheap tablet on the wall with the dashboard.

Also, having to install a completely separate Dashboard app to gain the function that should be present in the default one of the device I bought; There seems to be WAY to much depending on other to fix Hubitat flaws.

You can change the label/icon of a tile with css. There are a few examples in this post below for doing so.