Complex devices like climate store sensor values as attributes, but there’s no straightforward way to access these values and put them directly on a dashboard.
I recently ran into this exact flow where I wanted to update my dashboard to show the temperature from a climate device rather than a bluetooth sensor,
I wish that I could have just done something like changing sensor.office_temperature to climate.office.temperature
I ended up needing to a) realize that I needed to create a helper, b) learn the templating syntax and filter functions, c) open multiple tabs to make sure I get the right entity and attribute name.
That is true, however attributes don’t seem to be supported as well as sensors everywhere (for example in other helpers). I like the idea of a helper that would turn an attribute into a sensor. It just seems like a “making it easier” idea so we don’t have to use a template in this case.
There is also a firm direction from the developers to not allow attributes that change often in new integrations. They should be entities. So it should get easier as things go on.
