While some users have been cleverly creative in the way they name their electronic devices, many people don’t think twice about clicking the next button when naming their devices.
Picking the right name can prove useful to ensure enjoyment while improving organisation and productivity on your home network.
Here are seven tips to help you pick a good device name and what to avoid:
1. Don’t use the default names
Default device names might not be a problem if only one or two devices are connected. However, once your whole family and friends start connecting to your network it can easily become cluttered and difficult to manage.
2. Don’t use emoji or funny characters
Avoid emoji or uncommon ASCII characters in device names. Older device might not be able to communicate properly and connecting could be impossible. Bluetooth devices, network sharing services, and unsupporting protocols might refuse to work because of unsupported characters in the name.
3. Keep it short and simple
Keeping it short can save you a lot of hassle. It would be easier to spot and easier to enter on devices such as printers in the case you have to manually type the device name on a keypad.
Pick a name that you wouldn’t be embarrassed to say aloud if you need to give it to a colleague or when you have to say it in public connecting to a friend.
With connected devices like Google Assistant and Alexa it has become a commonplace to give commands with device names to control different devices. So keep that in mind.
4. Use a person’s name as identifier
The simplest but most effective naming scheme is to use the person’s name hyphenated with the type of device. Something like Tim-Cellphone or Cathy-Laptop is short and descriptive.
This is particularly useful to avoid confusion among siblings whom may each have Bluetooth speaker or wireless earphones.
5. Use its location as a description
Adding the device’s location to it’s name is also a great naming scheme. You can name devices Kitchen-speaker or Bathroom-scale to make them easily identifiable.
6. Use a naming pattern
If you don’t like the practical solutions you can always use a naming pattern to organize your devices.
Examples of naming patterns:
• Character names from your favourite TV show, movie, or video game.
• Names of butterflies, birds, other animals or plants.
• Elements from the Periodic table.
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