Electric usage template sensor not showing in energy dashboard

[Merc]

Hi all,
I have generated the power sensor below and would like to use this as an upstream device (see screenshot from energy dashboard).

- template:
 

  -  sensor:
       - name: "Toon total power"
         unique_id: "Toon total power"
         state: "{{((states('sensor.toon_p1_power_use_low_2') |float) + (states('sensor.toon_p1_power_use_high_2')|float))}}"
         state_class: measurement
         unit_of_measurement: W
         device_class: power

In the developer tools the sensor shows the values it should and updates. But I cannot select it from the drop down menu in the energy dashboard.

What am I missing??

Thanks and best regards,

Merc

[Edwin_D]

The upstream device is a device, not an entity. Originally it was a device that has an energy sensor, for energy and power it would need both. it is a leftover of the previous design, in retrospect maybe not the wisest choice.

Currently, the only solution I can think of is to either make the template sensor in the GUI and pick an existing device as parent (that does not already have conflicting power/energy sensors) or use the custom integration device tools.

Device Tools: Create, Modify and Merge Devices

Devices and their pages are a great way to group entities and see relevant information about a physical device in one glance. Unfortunately many custom and core integration are not using the built in ways to reuse existing devices or attach lose entities to their associated device. Also users are not allowed to manually create devices or override device attributes in any way although sometimes this functionality would be helpful with better representing the actual physical device’s information…

[Merc]

Hi Edwin_D,
Thanks a lot. That is a solution I would not have thought of, did not even know I can do that.
Is there a risk in doing that? I would like to connect this template to my existing smart meter which of course has a few power and energy sensors but none with this name. Would that work?

Would I just copy the whole sensor part into the template?

Thanks,

Merc

[Edwin_D]

Adding the entities to existing devices is possible when you create the sensor as a helper in the GUI. That is perfectly safe. But if the device you add it to has multiple power and energy sensors I doubt you cn use it as an upstream device.

Creating a device and adding loose entities to it with Device tools isn’t very dangerous. I’d steer away from moving entites to other devices by merging devices or reassigning entities though. I’ve been using the integration for quite a wile now without any trouble.

[Merc]

I am using the HACS Toon integration which exposes data from the Toon thermostat to home assistant. Interestingly the Toon device is not a device in HA, there are only the sensors. And I can use them in other parts of the energy dashboard. Makes we wonder why this one place needs a device, unlike all the others.