Home Assistant Guide

What is an Area?

Areas are used to group devices and entities by physical location within your home - like "Living Room", "Kitchen", or "Bedroom". Assigning devices to areas makes it easier to manage them, set up automations, and use voice commands (like "Turn off the lights in the kitchen").

• You can assign devices and helpers (like switches or sensors) to an area.
• Each area can have its own icon (for visual clarity) and an optional picture (e.g., a photo of the room).
• Areas can be assigned to floors, helping you organize a multi-story home.
• Areas are visible in dashboards and the "Devices & Services" and "Helpers" sections.

What is a Label?

Labels are a flexible way to group entities or devices that share something in common, no matter where they are in your home. Think of them like tags or stickers you can apply to things.

• Use labels for grouping by function (like "Security", "Heating") or type ("Battery Devices"), not just location.
• Labels can have their own icon and a color, making them stand out visually.
• You can add multiple labels to a single device or entity.
• Great for filtering in dashboards and automations.

What is a Zone?

Zones represent locations outside your home (or within, if you want). They're mainly used for presence detection and automations, like triggering actions when you arrive at or leave a certain place.

• Common zones: "Home" (your house), "Work", "School", or any place on a map.
• You define their location using an address or pin on a map, plus a radius (in meters).
• Zones can have a name and an icon (but not a color or picture).
• Useful for automations like "Turn on the heating when I leave work."

Creating & Editing Areas, Labels & Zones

• Areas: Go to Settings → Devices & Services → Areas. Click Add Area, give it a name, pick an icon, add a photo if you like, and (optionally) assign it to a floor.
• Labels: Go to Settings → Devices & Services → Labels. Click Add Label, choose a name, select an icon and a color.
• Zones: Go to Settings → Areas & Zones → Zones. Click Add Zone, then enter the name, location (by address or on the map), radius, and icon.
• To edit, just click the area/label/zone you want to change, then adjust the settings as needed.

About Floors

Floors let you organize areas by the level of your home - like "Ground Floor", "Upstairs", or "Basement". You can create floors and assign each area to a floor for better organization, especially if you have a large or multi-story home. This is helpful for dashboards, voice commands, and quickly locating devices. Floors themselves can be used as Areas in automations, scripts, etc. - for example you could use the action "Light: Turn on" and select "Ground Floor" as the area.

Summary Table

Tips & Best Practices

• Use areas for rooms or spaces - one per room works well for most homes.
• Apply labels for grouping by device type, use case, or project (e.g., "Media", "Lights", "Battery-powered").
• Create zones for places you go - work, school, shops - to automate actions when you arrive or leave.
• Make use of icons and colors to make everything easily recognizable at a glance.
• Don't worry about getting it perfect from the start - you can always edit areas, labels, or zones later.