How do I retrieve "useful" information from white label devices, so that I can ask for help setting them up

Configuration
1

I’m in somewhat of an unusual situation. I have “an abundance” of home automation devices of various types, makes and models,

I’m trying to build a smart system out of them, but as I know almost nothing about HA, and am not a confident coder, I’m struggling with some of the basic setup, and I’d like to post some questions to the community asking for help.

The catch is that while I have no shortage of parts for my system they’re almost all unbranded or rebranded white label devices. I’ve got maybe 5 different designs of contact sensor also, and even the ones that look the same on the outside don’t all have the same components on the inside, and that’s without even getting into the CCTV cameras.

I’ve had a few false starts and a few missteps, and my takeaway from them has been that I need to post as much information as possible, and to be as specific as possible, otherwise the replies that I get will be all over the place.

So, in the absence of anything useful on the device itself, what do I need to do in HA to retrieve as much useful information as possible about each device in order to the best answer to my questions?

For example. If I have an unbranded zigbee contact sensor, which specific steps do I need to take to retrieve as much useful information as possible from HA about the sensor?

In case anyone is wondering, customs impound yards sell of impounded goods if the fees aren’t paid, and suckers like me sometimes buy them unseen.

2

Well for Zigbee stuff - the vast majority will probably just work, at least with Zigbee2MQTT.

Other stuff - network stuff, you probably want to start by using a network scanner and see what the name is of the company that is attached to the MAC of the device, then you can do some Googling to see where you can go from there.

3

Look at the device itself under settings->devices & services->integrations->->devices.

pretty much everything about the device will be listed there.

if it’s not configured via the UI then it’s a bit harder since not all integrations have devices listed there and you will need to know the info yourself.