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Eclipse SmartHome™ project
https://www.eclipse.org/smarthome/
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Add Category to thing-type #568

Closed kaikreuzer closed 7 years ago

kaikreuzer commented 8 years ago

migrated from Bugzilla #465478 status UNCONFIRMED severity enhancement in component Core for --- Reported in version unspecified on platform PC Assigned to: Project Inbox

On 2015-04-25 07:19:04 -0400, Chris Jackson wrote:

I think it would be useful to add category to the ThingType object.

Currently Category a member of the channel and item, and therefore is effectively added to a Thing once it's created, but I think it would make sense to have it available in the ThingType as well to allow users to sort/find/display information.

On 2015-04-25 08:08:33 -0400, Dennis Nobel wrote:

All the categories we defined so far are "functional categories". The problem with things or devices is, that the diversity is huge. Functions are the atomic buildings blocks of devices. When trying to categorize devices you end up creating an ontology, where a lot of people failed so far. Because of this we decided to not have a category for things.

For sure for some simple devices it seems to be straight forward. E.g. a thermostat could be a category for a device that supports temperature regulation. But what is the category of a more complex devices with multiple functions. Kai just me showed me the new Fibaro motion sensor (http://www.fibaro.com/de/the-fibaro-system/motion-sensor). Besides motion it also measures temperature and other values. So what should be the category of this device? "motion sensor"? "motion sensor with temperature sensor"? "device with multiple sensors"? I hope the problem is clear.

A lot of people and organizations try to create ontologies at the moment. Before we also try to create a new one, I would propose to wait until someone else comes up with a good approach (if this is possible at all - I´m not yet convinced that this is possible).

On 2015-04-27 09:43:28 -0400, Chris Jackson wrote:

I agree - there's a log of diversity in sensors these days, but to answer your question about the Fibaro FGMS - it's a motion sensor. Yes, it has secondary sensors that can be enabled separately (disabled by default), but it's sold as a motion sensor.

In any case, I understand what you mean, but I also think that some sort of category (or maybe we call it something else) is useful. We already have the ability to put a category into a thing (ie in the thing-item), so it seems a little strange that it can't also be attributed to the thing-type?!?

From a UI perspective, I think it's useful to have some field attributed to a device that allows searching. Maybe it can be done indirectly through the channel categories, but there's no way to say which is the 'main' channel and what are secondary. I guess that's another solution is to add some sort of 'channel context' so that we know if the channel is a primary or secondary (or third-ary) function of the device?

kaikreuzer commented 8 years ago

I'd like to revive this issue and actually extend it a bit.

When adding categories not only to channel types, but also to to thing types, I think we should also add it to channel group types - as these can sometimes be regarded as "sub-devices" and thus could have a category on their own (but imho from the same list as the thing types).

@sjka Maybe this can be done together with https://github.com/eclipse/smarthome/issues/1073 as it touches the same places in the code?