WTH Persistent version of “last-changed” for the UI?

[poldim]

Continuing from 2020 and 2022, please consider making this an option if you don’t want to make it the default as Frank has insisted.

@burg93

Something that has always annoyed me is how the “last-changed” attribute is handled after a restart. I understand why it’s changing as it’s technically unavailable but it’s not very helpful when you’re using it in the UI. On my security dashboard I only really care about the time a window state changed from on/off, not the fact that HA restarted and changed all my windows to 1 minute ago…

What’s the likelihood of a new “last-changed” attribute that persists state between restarts so I don’t need to create a million different manual sensors to hold the state for me? It’s been raised a few times in the past so it can’t just be me!

Additional info (November 2024):

I suspect there’s little appetite to introduce this much requested feature so I’ve marked an answer as the “resolution” for anyone who comes across this lengthy thread. Sadly it does require a little manual effort but it does mean you get persistent proper last-changed information across restarts.

I’ll re-raise this next WFH.

[petro]

Duplicate https://community.home-assistant.io/t/wth-there-is-no-new-last-attribute-that-retains-restart/802413