Call for help: Let's build some quick ass sentences for the new HassSetPosition intent

[jlpouffier]

Yo @home-assistant/language-leaders 👋🏻

Normally, we all copy the idea of the English sentences to create our own sentences in our own language, English proving guidance most of the time.
For the HassSetPosition, English was a bit late to get all the use cases created for this release and I saw a few languages replicating the ONE sentence that exists in English.

I would recommend you to check what has been done in French, I can translate roughly what I did here to inspire you.
I opened this discussion because while writing the release note for. 2024.3, I noticed that this intent is quite week for now.

First I split the file homeassistant_HassSetPosition.yaml into cover_HassSetPosition.yaml and valve_HassSetPosition.yaml to get more granular control on what I was doing.

On the valve side, I decided to keep it extremely simple and only allow users to set a valve position by targeting ONE entity by its name.
Like set the irrigation valve position to 50% and that's it.
This file is here and it's pretty simple, one use-case: Name targeting: https://github.com/home-assistant/intents/blob/main/sentences/fr/valve_HassSetPosition.yaml
Why: valve as a domain is too new to understand exactly what people want to do with it.

On the cover side, we did:

• Targeting a cover by name: set the blue curtain position to 50%
• Targeting a cover by name + area: set the living room blue curtain position to 50%
• Targeting covers by device class + area: set (all) the living room shutterS position to 50%
• targeting covers by device class for the whole house: set (all) the shadeS position to 50%
• Context area awareness but device class: set the curtainS position (in here) to 50%

Even if you cannot read French, the comments show the structuring of the file here:
https://github.com/home-assistant/intents/blob/main/sentences/fr/cover_HassSetPosition.yaml

Note (This one is more on a per language basis), I am far from being an expert in your language:
In French we decided to use interchangeably the verbs set, open, and close for setting a cover position

• set the blue curtain position to 50%
• open the blue curtain to 80%
• close the blue curtain to 20%

We assumed that if users want to set a position that is smaller than the current position, they may use a "closing" verb, and vice versa.

I remain available if you need help!

[Uriziel01]

Yo JLo. So in the end open the curtains to 10% would have the exact same effect as close the curtains to 10%? Seems quite confusing, maybe it's just something wrong with Polish language in general but that's my perspective 🙂

[dontinelli]

I agree with @jlpouffier. It would be too complicated (and not yet possible from a technical point of view) to distinct the wording depending on the starting position. And for me open/close are more natural than set. But this might be different for other persons and/or in other languages.

[salleq]

If the user doesn't know 100% is fully open and 0% is fully closed and thinks it the other way? "Close my curtain 100%" -> curtain opens completely.

[jlpouffier]

I just did @tetele tests on Alexa just to verify :)

Shutters fully open 100%

• Close the shutters to 80%: The shutters close to 80% and it's coherent ✅
• Open the shutters to 90%: The shutters open to 90% and it's coherent ✅
• Open the shutters to 80%: The shutters close to 80% and it's not coherent ❌
• Close the shutters to 90%: The shutters open to 90% and it's not coherent ❌

Basically: They don't care, it's up to the user to pick what's natural

Funny story, a long time ago I was developing intents for Snips (A long-gone project) and I did something that I felt was more coherent.

When I was saying "OPen to X%", I was setting the position to X
When I was saying "Closee to X", I was setting the position to 100-X
It was a disaster, I kept forgetting which on was which. Awefull UX

[cibernox]

FWIW, in spanish I often say "Open the shutters to 50%" to open them.

Maybe my shutters were already at 60%, and that results on the shutters actually closing a little bit more. Or maybe there are several shutters each one opened a different percentage and some of them open more while others close a bit, but that's fine, the "spirit" of the intent is that I want my shutter or shutters at 50%, regardless of how open they are.

Also, at least for my rolling shutters, it's actually hard to estimate how open they are because being "visually" at 50% is not exactly the same as being 50%, because there's some amount of play with the slates of the shutter that makes the first 10% not actually lift the shutter but widen the gap between the slates.

In short, I think we should allow for open/close/set as valid verbs for controlling the position of covers. If the user specifies a percentaje, it's clear what their intent is, regardless of what verb they used and how opened the cover was.

[jlpouffier]

Remark: (Even if I like this discussion) My post was merely a call for action on the fact we're missing, today, a bunch of sentences in a bunch of languages that are supported ;)

[andrejs2]

Agree with interchangeability of set, open and close, the effect is the same as per @Uriziel01 , but user might be tempted to use close the curtain to 10 % when curain is opened and vice versa.

[mib1185]

What is about "set|open|close" by sentences (make it relativ to current position)?
Example: Blind is opened 80%

• close blind by 20 % should set it to 60%
• open blind by 10 % should set it to 90%

or should this go into another discussion (same logic should count for valves and volume)? 🙂

[tetele]

We need a service to incrementally alter a numeric state, which we don't have yet. It would be the same for temperatures (increase the temperature by 1 degree), volume (turn down the volume by 5%) etc.

[andrejs2]

The most useful in my opinion would this be for volume. I tell my kinds to put volume down for a notch and my 6-er understands :)

Mainly because I don't have fixed volume output because of TV and STB reciever; both can regulate volume and 5% on reciever output is not the same -dB as if TV is on 5% or 25%. Anyways...I strongly support your proposal for volume at least.

[cibernox]

This should be proposed in https://github.com/home-assistant/architecture/discussions/
I think that setting the position is cool, but sometimes increasing or decreasing a position by some amount without actually knowing what its value is can be very useful, particularly with voice control.

[jlpouffier]

Remark: (Even if I like this discussion) My post was merely a call for action on the fact we're missing, today, a bunch of sentences in a bunch of languages that are supported ;)

[mib1185]

• arch discussion started -> Add value change by offset services architecture#1057

[v1k70rk4]

@jlpouffier, I'm already watching all of your PRs :) this is already a living thing in Hungarian. Thank you here as well.