Read only view of helpers

[itsadamslife]

I use several helpers as part of my automations. I want to view their state on a dashboard without having the ability to accidentally change the helper's state, as this would alter the functionality of the automation that uses the helper. I am currently using template sensors to achieve this, but building additional sensors for this seems redundant. Adding a 'read_only: true' option to the entities and entity cards would be nice. This can help clean up some extra sensors only used for UI purposes.

[karwosts]

I believe in an entity card they are always read only.

In an entities card, you can change the type to simple-entity to render it as read only instead of a control.

type: entities
entities:
  - entity: input_datetime.test_datetime
  - entity: input_datetime.test_datetime
    type: simple-entity
  - entity: input_boolean.boolean1
  - entity: input_boolean.boolean1
    type: simple-entity

[karwosts]

home-assistant/home-assistant.io#27412

[itsadamslife]

Thank you for sharing this. I was not aware of the simple-entity type. I went back to the documentation and couldn't find any mention of it there either. This solved the problem I was having.

…

On Sun, May 14, 2023 at 12:02 PM karwosts ***@***.***> wrote: I believe in an entity card they are always read only. In an entities card, you can change the type to simple-entity to render it as read only instead of a control. type: entities entities: - entity: input_datetime.test_datetime - entity: input_datetime.test_datetime type: simple-entity - entity: input_boolean.boolean1 - entity: input_boolean.boolean1 type: simple-entity [image: image] <https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/32912880/238196986-67b83126-26c6-4f1d-9e70-c41a63adf3e0.png> — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#16508 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AIU5ZY5AK44E4ZZ5IOHMQA3XGD6YRANCNFSM6AAAAAAX6ERD6M> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.*** com>

[itsadamslife]

I had some simple dashboards set up via the visual editor. After adding this to my entities card in the YAML configuration, I am seeing this error in the visual editor for the card:

Key 'entities.25.type' is not expected or not supported by the visual editor.
The provided value for 'entities.25' is not supported by the visual editor. We support (string) but received ({"entity":"input_number.xxxx","name":"xxxx","type":"simple-entity"}).

I understand that this is not supported by the visual editor, but neither are some other types (divider, section, etc.) and you can still go back to the visual editor rather than just using YAML. I'm fine with using YAML (I'm very comfortable with it and have used it for several other things) but I have some things set up via the UI for simplicity purposes and being able to make changes on my phone easier.