Smart home mapping software

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Hi all. I was wondering what you all use to map out your smart home? I'm at a stage where I've got too many devices and rules to keep track of and never mind if I get hit by a bus and my wife needs to take over, so want to start mapping things out.
Wondering what is out there.
Alan

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I don’t have anything documented, but I have done my best to name devices in an intuitive way, starting with the room name. Same for the automations. That said, I expect that if I was ever to disappear, my sons would try to figure things out, and otherwise, if things started to go bezzerk, my wife would probably turn off the hub and just use the switches. There are only very few instances where this wouldn’t work (Pico remotes linked to Z-Wave or Zigbee light strips). I wold hope however that things would just continue to work for a very long while.

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Do you mean a physically drawn map, showing device placement?

For fun, years ago I made a SketchUp model of my house. Well, I tried to make several, and mostly failed, but I ended up with enough measured dimensions to make floor plans of the 3 floors. That was back when SketchUp was owned by Google and the program was free.

My Neato vacuum also emits a pretty good map, and if I didn't have the model I'd already created, I would have used that.

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I am using my house plans and colored markers :laughing:

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I try to have the room name and type of device in the device name. Like:

MBR - Door Contact = Master Bedroom Door Contact

My virtual devices all start with a 'v-' so I can tell at a quick glance that something is virtual.

I have toyed with renaming them so they all start with some letter (1 or 2) and a dash to indicate what they are and also group them all together so say:

c- = contact
m- = motion
s- = switch
b- = bulb
l- = leak sensor

You get the idea.

I need to so something similar for rules sometimes it's a pain to find the rule I want without doing a search. :slight_smile:

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I have a twofold "system";

Device names are pretty descriptive (i.e. Front Entrance, Garage flood etc)
I have an Excel spreadsheet the server multiple purposes:

  1. Device name and location (definitely needed for water sensors)
  2. Device inventory ("in use" or "still in the box")
  3. Battery type and last replaced.
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You're a lot better than I am if you record battery time replaced. I just pray the battery check app works or I notice that something is not working :stuck_out_tongue:

I was thinking more about a systematic flow type diagram/map. What devices are controlling what and how. The link below is an example of one but I've seen other diagrams used in some youtube videos (mostly by Home Assistant people).

The problem I have is that I may have a single device (e.g wall switch) that controls several things (e.g. light on click, downstairs lights off on double click, etc.) so it becomes a bit of spaghetti when I try link them. There must be something out there designed around this that makes it simple.

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I did the same but hit a snag when I started using a motion sensor as a lux sensor as well. Then had to start naming them with all they could do and/or are used for motion/lux/temperature

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I was going to use Microsoft Visio to do a large set of drawings for my home. With all of the electrical work I've carried out over the years I was going to start with circuit diagrams as it would be helpful to mark up wiring paths, order of points, junction box locations, connection detail for Z wave modules and associated switching. I'd also do the same showing the layout of the smart home devices and associated services.

Unfortunately when I booted Windows in my VM, Microsoft had deprecated my licensed copy of Visio Professional and it is no longer available to me (one of the only apps I keep Windows for). I use a Mac now and Omnigraffle is too expensive for my needs so I'm looking for another decent drawing app solution.

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try Wondershare EdrawMax. I use it for network diagrams. It has all sorts of templates.

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I also keep a google sheet of my battery replacement times. There's a screenshot of mine in this post. It's really useful to know what devices are working well and which ones aren't. E.g., based upon this spreadsheet, I got rid of all my SmartThings sensors using CR2450 batteries - they ate batteries.

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Thanks I'll take a look :+1:

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CadStd is another useful tool.

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I'm really trying to get in that habit, but it just hasn't taken hold.

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My wife always says she'll have no idea how to do anything in the house if something happened to me. LOL

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As I think more about it, one of the biggest challenges would likely be to know when batteries need changing, and changing them… I get notifications, but she (or my sons) don’t…. And they likely wouldn’t know how to check.

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Yeah, I'm in the same boat. Batteries are probably my biggest fail-point.

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I don't have a single battery-powered device for the reasons discussed above. Why on earth should I eventually discover a seldom-used door sensor actually quit working 4 days ago

/ unpopular opinion

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