When an intent requires a name and an area, we do not search for the name in the area, we search the name globally.

[jlpouffier]

The problem

Context

Some users have different devices with the same name, or same aliases in different areas.
A very common example would be an "Overhead light".
Because they are in different areas, we can target them by voice by specifying the area, if the intent supports it, and if the sentence exists.

A few translations to understand the examples below for non-french speakers.

"Overhead light" is called "Suspension" in French.

All my examples will be related to turning on overhead lights in different areas

• The office, called "Bureau"
• The bedroom, called "Chambre"
• The entryway called "Entrée"

Previous behavior

Note: I just restored core-2024.1.6 to validate it was working before.
Before this beta, if a user had multiple entities sharing the same alias (or name) located in different areas, it was possible to target the correct one by voice by specifying the area (if the intent supports it, and if the sentence exists)

As shown here:

Here is what the assist dev tool shows when targeting different overhead lights in different rooms, the target is correct, it's the correct light in the correct area.

turn on the overhead light in the office

intent:
  name: HassTurnOn
slots:
  name: Suspension
  area: bureau
details:
  name:
    name: name
    value: Suspension
    text: suspension
  area:
    name: area
    value: bureau
    text: bureau
targets:
  light.bureau_suspension:
    matched: true

turn on the overhead light in the entryway

intent:
  name: HassTurnOn
slots:
  name: Suspension
  area: 36be0a2612474c6c8baa7cbd0a2d91d7
details:
  name:
    name: name
    value: Suspension
    text: suspension
  area:
    name: area
    value: 36be0a2612474c6c8baa7cbd0a2d91d7
    text: entrée
targets:
  light.entree_suspension:
    matched: true

turn on the overhead light in the bedroom

intent:
  name: HassTurnOn
slots:
  name: Suspension
  area: chambre
details:
  name:
    name: name
    value: Suspension
    text: suspension
  area:
    name: area
    value: chambre
    text: chambre
targets:
  light.chambre_suspension:
    matched: true

Current behavior.

It looks like the name matching is now done before the area filtering.

This leads to an unwanted behavior:
If a user had multiple entities sharing the same alias (or name) located in different areas, then regardless of the area in the input of the sentence, the same entity will be targeted.

• If the entity happens to be in the correct area, the intent will work (One case out of N)
• if the entity is not in the correct area (N-1 case out of N) it will not.

For example, the "first" overhead light in my system found is in the entryway - So only the sentence targeting the entryway works, as shown here:

(Note: The first response is Sorry, I did not understand that)

Here is what the assist dev tool shows when targeting different overhead lights in different rooms.

• Notice how the input data is now the same overhead light on all sentences, the entryway one.
• Notice how the only sentence with an actual target is the one on the entryway. This is because (By chance) the light is on the correct area.

turn on the overhead light in the office

intent:
  name: HassTurnOn
slots:
  name: suspension
  area: bureau
details:
  name:
    name: name
    value: light.entree_suspension
    text: suspension
  area:
    name: area
    value: bureau
    text: bureau
targets: {}
match: true
sentence_template: <allume> [<le>]{name} <dans> [<le>]{area}
unmatched_slots: {}
source: builtin

turn on the overhead light in the entryway

intent:
  name: HassTurnOn
slots:
  name: suspension
  area: entrée
details:
  name:
    name: name
    value: light.entree_suspension
    text: suspension
  area:
    name: area
    value: entree
    text: entrée
targets:
  light.entree_suspension:
    matched: true
match: true
sentence_template: <allume> [<le>]{name} <dans> [<le>]{area}
unmatched_slots: {}
source: builtin

turn on the overhead light in the bedroom

intent:
  name: HassTurnOn
slots:
  name: suspension
  area: chambre
details:
  name:
    name: name
    value: light.entree_suspension
    text: suspension
  area:
    name: area
    value: chambre
    text: chambre
targets: {}
match: true
sentence_template: <allume> [<le>]{name} <dans> [<le>]{area}
unmatched_slots: {}
source: builtin

What version of Home Assistant Core has the issue?

core-2024.2.0b9

What was the last working version of Home Assistant Core?

core-2024.1.6

What type of installation are you running?

Home Assistant OS

Integration causing the issue

assist_pipeline

Link to integration documentation on our website

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/assist_pipeline/

Diagnostics information

No response

Example YAML snippet

No response

Anything in the logs that might be useful for us?

No response

Additional information

No response

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[tetele]

Possibly related to #109792

[tetele]

Possibly related to #109808 too

[synesthesiam]

I've figured out what's happening: I changed the building of slot lists for hassil to pass in entity id as well as entity name. This had an unfortunate consequence of possibly picking the wrong entity when they were named the same because hassil only gets the first matching candidate from a list.