Hey guys, i’m hoping maybe you could help me understand a little more about Home Assistant. I keep learning but there’s always more to learn
skimming this thread: Help With a Scene Using Ecobee Thermostats In The Heat/Cool (Auto) Mode
it appears @ninicp and @d921 are discussing to actually modify the action of the ecobee from idle to heating to cool etc so i’m using something similar for my learning moment
While I may be interested to do something like that eventually, for now
I’m just wanting to actually look in the history and graph the Attribute hvac_action vs a temperature graph to see when the ecobee is changing modes and so I want to generally learn about making/using data that’s not as obviously available and what some more experienced users recommend
So, what i want to do for my current use case is look at the ecobee attribute “hvac_action” which I see in the Developer Tools → States
but, i cannot see it for example if I go to Settings → Devices → Integrations/Devices/Entities
There’s an entity called “current mode” but that’s not the same as this attribute, it just shows whether the ecobee is in “home” or “sleep” mode for example
or if i go to the Ecobee device and look at the gui that shows Sensors/Controls that attribute isn’t one of the items listed.
So, I’m trying to understand how i might get that specific Attribute into HA in a way I can primarily look at in History on a graph, but idk, potentially also trigger a node-red automation for example to turn on my gas fireplace whenever the ecobee hvac_action: changes from “Idle” to “Heating”
Would I “create a sensor”?
I’m aware of Blueprints and Helpers?
I tried to go add a Helper and attempted a few of them without luck due to lack of understanding of where to start. Some had entities available but no Attribute for example
at a brick wall for the moment. Any ideas?
Even if you’re not familiar with ecobee but know how to extract an Attribute from Developer Tools Entity States, that’s what I really want to understand conceptually and with a few best practices on what to do about using those Attributes.