Fixtures are fixed to walls, floors and ceilings. eg. outlets and lamps.
Devices are not fixed and can be moved around. eg TV and washing machine.

This was wrong, the good answers are under this post by other forummembers.

But if you don't even know the difference, is it really smart to let you make the families?

Dude, really?

I had never heard that difference explained either. I guess I shouldn't make any more families.

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From the help files:
Help- Place Devices
Help- Place Equipment
While looking for the above I came across this: https://www.modelical.com/en/gdocs/electrical-families/ It looks pretty well written and comprehensive.

I didn't mean it bad, i am just saying that if you don't know exactly what you are doing, maybe don't make the electrical families for your company to work with.
Get someone who knows how those families are build and learn from it. Bad families will cost you a lot more time and money on the long run.

And what I'm saying is: not knowing the original intent of vaguely named categories (and to be clear, several interpretations of what they are for have already been posted, so it certainly isn't "fact") doesn't make someone I'll equipped to make the content.

Hell, ive had people ON THIS FORUM tell me families are automatically bad if they are Generic Models. LMAO.

If someone rolls in saying "how do I use my cad details to make families," I'm with you on telling them maybe they shouldn't build content for a living. But for not knowing the diff in those two cats? Meh.

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A table lamp is a light fixture, yes? And yet it's not "fixed to walls, floors and ceilings." Hmmmmm. Me thinks you missed something in your revitsplaining.

Equipment is generally things like panels, transformers, disconnect switches, maybe electrical heating equipment if it's specced by electrical around your area. Electrical devices are usually things people typically interact more on a daily bases like light switches, communication devices, but Revit also has fire alarms under devices in their system tab. Another way to think of it is equipment usually deals with moving or controlling power somehow while devices typically use it, although heaters is an exception to that.

If you don't know what categories elements should belong to in Revit or in whatever folder structure your using to store families, or in real life, the best thing to do is ask someone early. Better to look like an ignorant person for 5 mins than to be an ignorant person for 5 months.

Take anything I say with a grain of salt. I'm just an architecturally trained mechanical designer turned BIM manager, so whatever.