Why are people asking the same questions over and over again? (Or the Regulars' Chatroom) 🤷

[FriedCheese (Ryan)]

@aceindy

Give a man a bread and his hunger problem is solved for a day.
Teach a man how to grow grain and won’t be hungry anymore

Throw a man from a plane and he’ll fly the rest of his life.

I couldn’t resist.

[Sir_Goodenough ((SG) WhatAreWeFixing.Today)]

My firewood for next year is the rest of some emerald ash borer victims filling up my yard and a storm downed honey locust in the neighbors yard, both killing the grass. To wet to get there with the tractor, though.

[FriedCheese (Ryan)]

I made some formatting changes to the cookbook post and added a few links.

[boheme61]

I Took the liberty to add some to your “Search-Wiki”
PS: Feel free to edit to your liking

[boheme61]

@zombies.aaargh

@boheme61

It’s Not !, easiest is installing File-Editor

Just so that you are aware, you’re arguing with the wrong person.

Im Not !, it was My opinion, but apparently you missed the last an most important part, which is a foundation for this Forum to stay as a Popular Interface( Solution Database/Forum ) for Search, Find and Help, And not cluttered down because everyone act and think like You, as your self mention.

@zombies.aaargh

I think that a lot of the repetition in questions that the forum is getting is probably due to people with a slightly different permutation or combination asking a question that’s specific to them because they’ve become overwhelmed by the sheer amount of content available that’s close to what they want, but not exactly.

Which in the end is just another repetition !
Doe to this

@zombies.aaargh

Likewise, with existing threads, new users read them but don’t really understand how to put what is in them into practice in their specific circumstances. I’ve gone through a few troubleshooting threads and found that people are suggesting doing things, but aren’t giving any clues on how to do them. So it’s often easier and simpler to ask a new question and then get an answer that’s specific to you.

Trust me, most people have gone through the same phase , some chooses to read more, search more, test / try more, however a few (very few) decides to pump in tons of new Topics, thinking they are entitled to just because they find It’s easier, and “my case is special”

And you already think there is way to many Topics/Post in here ?

[ShadowFist]

@tom_l

I wouldn’t go that far. But reading what I could understand and skipping the bits I couldn’t got me a long way in the beginning. Then it was just a lot of time spent looking through all the integrations to see what I could use.

I’ve always gone with the mentality that “I can’t possibly be the only idiot who got stumped on this”. Sure enough, I’d almost always find a post or some random google result to nudge me forward just enough to invariably stumble on the next step. Rinse and repeat and eventually you’ll get there.

It’s a bit like playing Elden Ring (or anything by FromSoft) - you might fail a hundred times, but you only need to get it right just once to progress.

[Sir_Goodenough ((SG) WhatAreWeFixing.Today)]

TIL – found anther cool editing trick.
Start of line in here, type > then > a couple more times followed by a 3 -. No spaces.

---

Nice different dividing line.

[petro]

> in markdown is like quoting someone

[Sir_Goodenough ((SG) WhatAreWeFixing.Today)]

Stacking them made a cool effect, never seen before it slipped out.

[PeteRage]

Worth a read

“illustrates how talented people continuously design bad software-based products and why we need technology to work the way average people think.”

https://www.amazon.com/Inmates-Are-Running-Asylum-Products/dp/0672326140?nodl=1&dplnkId=4b764368-d99b-48c5-83bb-0af3a8f123a1

[tom_l]

Another guide for the cookbook list?

Why an availability template is important for energy template sensors

When defining a template sensor for use in the energy dashboard it is important to also use the availability template option. Without this you may see incorrect values in your energy dashboard. For example, consider this template sensor that sums two energy sensors to obtain a total: template: - sensor: - name: "Energy Total" unique_id: 094412db-6903-dead-beef-b40e0e41ea28 device_class: energy state_class: total_increasing unit_of_measurement: kWh …

[Sir_Goodenough ((SG) WhatAreWeFixing.Today)]

Done
You know, we won’t explode it you add these yourself…

Contributors

New posts in this series (or improvements to existing ones - each post is a wiki) are welcome.

• Make a post in Community Guides and tag it with cookbook.
• Include a link to the index
• Add a link from the index

[Sir_Goodenough ((SG) WhatAreWeFixing.Today)]

I did this one you suggested today, and another one I was meaning to do.
Both are ‘Petro Pearls of Wisdom’ based. (PPW)

At What Rates Do Templates Render & Update.
Target Selector & Entity Selector Errors.

[parautenbach (Pieter Rautenbach)]

Excellent! This forum post has delivered a lot of value. I went through my bookmarks last night to see if there’s more to add, but from that list I think the coverage is now pretty good.

[parautenbach (Pieter Rautenbach)]

I just came across another one: renaming entities to keep history. This post, however, has some new information.

Rename entity ids and retain statistics

How can I rename entity IDs without losing historical statistics? When i change the ID, all the statistics of this sensor are gone. I can undo the name change and the statistics are back. But i need another ID name.

[tom_l]

That’s not as useful as replacing a device though. Which is the most commonly asked for information. There does not seem to be a viable procedure for that (yet).

[nickrout]

@boheme61

But do remind me, as i currently have to focus on getting some firewood down/cut/split n stored,

Tried my new log splitter today. Should get it esphomed. It could answer many questions: How many splits today? How much electricity do you use to chop that firewood? Why is my back sore?

[nickrout]

@FriedCheese

Throw a man from a plane and he’ll fly the rest of his life.

Set a man on fire and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life!

[parautenbach (Pieter Rautenbach)]

How can we make more people aware of the new cookbook, both newcomers and regular visitors? I saw Tom pinned it, but beyond that.

Another question I see regularly is: “I’m just getting started. What are my IoT device options?”

This is such a broad and personal preference question that it’s very hard to answer. I normally stick to some guidelines: Where are you? Start small. Solve a specific problem. Be willing to experiment. Avoid cloud and polling. Etc.

EDIT: I suppose the “20 things” in the cookbook partly covers it.

[NathanCu (Nathan Curtis)]

Cookbook begets cookbook.

Rename entity ids and retain statistics

You can and that is what I did. Say you have sensor.a and sensor.b for energy monitoring. sensor.b is the new one to replace sensor.a. Since it is a straight replacement, the data should be the “same”, at least the historical (LTS) data. To move the LTS from sensor.a to sensor_b (requires 2024.3.1 or newer): Remove or disable the integration providing sensor.a, it must be providing no state. If you press e and search for the entity (or go to states under developer tools), it must not appear. …

Someone needs to capture that procedure to move LTS data in the last post ASAP