Hi Patrick, yes, I know you meant to be rude - and so does everyone else (sorry you wanted to pass me off onto the other thread [which, PS, you weren’t replying - I watched]… deleting the other post was my attempt to comply with your authoritative-thread-border-policing, so I’m not sure why you’re being like this).
HA isn’t exactly intuitive, so forgive my “youth” on the (relatively [please compare to most other systems in terms of ease-of-use] highly complex) platform (or don’t, but I don’t see how communications like this from senior members is helping the community grow).
In order to get at the heart of things, let me break this down for you. First, we need to categorize solutions into “simple, moderate, and complex” for someone new to HomeAssistant and relatively new to coding (note: generally speaking, you should never be rude to people, and it’s only moderately acceptable to be somewhat impatient with someone who is performing under their realistic expected performance… because I’m new to home assistant - and you’ve mentioned you saw that was extremely clear from my question and attempt at asking someone for help - you really shouldn’t have been rude [potentially related, if I had kept both posts in both threads, you could have been just as toxic as you are being now, but I could have just ignored you and gone to the other thread to find some people who are more socially aware… and this wouldn’t have devolved into “Home Assistant community is toxic” perceptions on this thread]… but the thread police know best).
Let’s define them for you (from my perspective).
Simple: Relatively easy to point and click, drag and drop. All done from a UI (not having to do anything in YAML).
Moderate: Having to make minor adjustments in YAML (let’s say this is maybe limited to 3 lines of code or changing a few different entities or sensors). Maybe use BluePrints or Custom Cards.
Complex: Having to make major adjustments in YAML (let’s say this is anything over 3 lines of code).
Simple automations do interfere with ability to control things manually. A simple automation would be to control my headunit temperature entity through a service call and base that on the temperature of my sonoff sensor - but those are static. To make this dynamic (I change the temperature in one location, say a card), I’d have to move this into moderate complexity. I might even be able to handle it with a bunch of different automations and conditions, but that would probably move into at least moderate difficulty.
- depending on what you want to achieve, you can use every sensor for “all” things you want. You need some readup to do, because you’re mixing frontend (represantation or view) with background work (in this case automations). You don’t need any specific card to get a sensor value, the card would only be a “visual represantation” of that sensor value in the frontend.
Again, having to know all the backend and frontend distinctions, knowing how they function and interrelate to one another is well beyond my experience level with HomeAssistant. This should have been super clear to you, as I’m sure it was with just about every other Senior Member. Please send me a link with the reading where it delineates how they function and work together.
- You don’t need any thermometer in config, and three of them is way to much. I honestly don’t know what you mean with thermometer in
configuration.yaml (what integration you mean). But it isn’t needed anyway. 
- The firmware and ESPHome are some very different things, this is for anyother post, let’s stay with th other things for the moment.
I’m not sure how you thought I was saying they are the same. Please clarify.
How it’s related to this post:
Also, I ended up buying 4 Model SLWF-01pro.
These are ESPHome devices that do not show up in ESPHome. I do not know why they are not showing up in ESPHome in the way that normal ESPHome devices would. I can see them in my integrations, I can see them as devices (with entities) in HA, but when I go into the ESPHome AddOn, they are not there. These are preloaded with ESPHome and configuration yaml that allows them to control various different mini splits and condensers. Their firmware can be updated, but the only “simple” way of doing that is by going to 192.168.4.1. I was hoping that the configuration yaml just needed a relatively minor modification to interface with a remote sensor - seems like that would for sure be one of the best places to start [closer to the hardware] rather than patching things together way upstream > ESPHome > HomeAssistant > HACS > Cards > Custom Cards > Custom YAML.
How do you get the connection to your MrCool right now?
I’m connecting to my MrCool units now with ESPHome and the Serge Dongles (SLWF-01pro).
what MrCool unit: MrCool DIY (4 head units, one condenser)
what adapter: 4 x SLWF-01pro (one for each head unit)
what sensors for your temp: 4 x SNZB-02D
what exactly you want to achieve: I want to be able to control the MrCool head unit from a card in a dashboard but have the temperature readings and MrCool’s modulation be dictated by the SNZB-02D, not the onboard temperature sensor.
Installed HA: HomeAssistant OS (Generic Intel)
Nevertheless here we go, taking your additional info from the other thread into account.
). An automation doesn’t hinder you from manually controlling a device. But all in all you’re a bit confusing in your questions, and they do not really relate to each other. So I’ll try to rip that up a little. 
)
