Sensor Naming

This page described how entities are named by default in Powercalc and the options to change that behaviour.

Default naming convention

Let's assume you have a source sensor light.patio with name "Patio". Powercalc will create the following sensors by default.

• sensor.patio_power (Patio power)
• sensor.patio_energy (Patio energy)

Change suffixes

To change the default suffixes _power and _energy you can use the power_sensor_naming and energy_sensor_naming options. The following configuration:

powercalc:
  energy_sensor_naming: "{} kWh consumed"

will create following sensors:

• sensor.patio_power (Patio power)
• sensor.patio_kwh_consumed (Patio kWh consumed)

Friendly naming

This option allows you to separately change only the name (shown in GUI), it will not have effect on the entity id

powercalc:
  energy_sensor_naming: "{} kwh"
  energy_sensor_friendly_naming: "{} Energy consumed

will create following sensors:

• sensor.patio_kwh (Patio Energy consumed)

Change full name

You can also change the base sensor name with the name option

powercalc:
  sensors:
    - entity_id: light.patio
      name: Patio Light

will create:

• sensor.patio_light_power (Patio light power)
• sensor.patio_light_energy (Patio light energy)

Follow device name

Open the Global configuration → Power sensor section and enable Follow device name to use device naming for supported virtual power sensors configured through the UI. This option is off by default, including for existing entries. Changing the global setting reloads existing entries to apply it.

This setting applies globally; there is no per-entry toggle. Unsupported configurations keep their configured names.

Powercalc uses Home Assistant's device naming for the generated power, energy, standby energy, utility meter, cost, and tariff selection entities. For example, an entity named Patio Power will become Terrace Power when you rename its assigned device from Patio to Terrace. Renaming the source entity alone does not rename these entities.

Entity IDs, unique IDs, energy totals, and statistics remain unchanged. Custom names set in the entity settings are preserved and follow Home Assistant's normal naming rules. The Powercalc configuration title and stored name remain unchanged; turning the option off returns to the configured naming behavior. Home Assistant may still format names using its own device naming settings.

The first version supports virtual power entries associated with a named device and using the standard display-name patterns. It does not support YAML entries, groups, standalone cost entries, named source channels, multi-switch configurations, or multiple virtual power entries assigned to the same device. These configurations retain their existing naming behavior.

The shared-device check considers UI entries only, not YAML sensors. Eligibility is checked on entry setup: after adding or removing another entry on the same device, reload existing entries or restart Home Assistant to update their naming behavior.

Custom display-name patterns, including inherited global patterns, take precedence over this option. Custom entity-ID patterns can be used if their corresponding friendly-name patterns explicitly retain the standard display names, such as power_sensor_friendly_naming: "{} power".

If an explicitly configured device cannot be found at startup, Powercalc logs a warning and uses the configured names for that load. Sources without a device, unnamed devices, and other unsupported configurations are logged at debug level. The option remains enabled and is tried again on the next reload or restart.