RFC: Device manufacturer / model reporting

[ubnt-marc-khouri]

Goal

Report device manufacturer and model in a standardized way, accessible to other components and the frontend. For example, allow showing whether a Sonos player is a Play:1 vs Playbar. Many components/platforms already have this info, but either report it in state_attributes, or not at all.

Proposal

1. homeassistant/helpers/entity.py: Extend Entity to include a manufacturer_name and model_name property (similar to unique_id)
2. homeassistant/helpers/entity_platform.py: Pass the manufacturer/model information to the Entity Registry
3. entity registry: Store the mfg / model info, so that other components may access it
4. Platforms are extended to expose this information, for example in Hue:

# HueLight class
# https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/blob/0.69.1/homeassistant/components/light/hue.py#L201
+    @property
+    def manufacturer_name(self):
+        """Return the manufacturer of the Hue light."""
+        return self.light.manufacturername
+
+    @property
+    def model_name(self):
+        """Return the model of the Hue light."""
+        return self.light.productname

[balloob]

I like this idea a lot . We won't pollute the state machine with it. I think the entity registry is an excellent place to change this as it won't ever change (contrary to say, firmware version).

[ubnt-marc-khouri]

Thanks for the feedback! I'll stay tuned for any other comments, and probably prepare a PR near the end of the week

[fabaff]

I like it too. Having additional details at hand can help to debug issues. I'm thinking about the TP-Link switch support that broke with new firmware or the no-name/relabeled devices from Asia which belong to family of identical devices which are just sold under different names.

[dgomes]

I also like the idea, actually some components such as camera already have brand and model properties:

https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/blob/de50d5d9c1c0375c5e46042f3168d356c73f6aa1/homeassistant/components/camera/__init__.py#L254

[balloob]

We should make sure to align those. Note that this property will only be used for entities with a unique id.

[ubnt-marc-khouri]

As pointed out by @dgomes , the current Camera Entity class uses brand and model, whereas my proposal is manufacturer_name and model_name.

Any strong opinions on naming? I slightly prefer manufacturer_name over brand, but I don't feel strongly about it

[Kane610]

I prefer it as Zigbee does it; uses modelid and manufacturer

[balloob]

The downside of model id is that we can't just show it in the frontend.

[Kane610]

@balloob I see them as the same thing

[balloob]

Interesting. I would expect id to reference an identifier, name to reference a name.

I think that we should have the names contain the source + the attribute. So I wouldn't like manufacturer, I would prefer manufacturer_name. I think for model, initially I would be interested in the model_name, not the model_id. I would want to show a list of devices in Home Assistant.

[MartinHjelmare]

@balloob we can close this I think. It was solved with the device registry.

See #36.