You can’t grab information from yourself if yourself hasn’t been created. So this will always be out of sync forever. Gotta grab the info from the json.
Depends on what you want to do with them in the end. If you want to display them nicely in the UI, keep them separate and you’ll have a ton of options.
it is, but you’d have to template everything for automations. You wouldn’t be able to use normal triggers, you’d have to use template triggers, and for conditions you’d have to use template conditions. Every time you wanted one of the values from the combined sensor, you’d have to parse it out using code. Do you want to do that all for the sake of a condensed interface? Not to mention, you can build a condensed interface with other card types. The entity card just displays it in that long form that you posted.