Home Assistant getting started any tips not covered in the docs?

[Frogmore42]

I remember back when using HA with Tasmota was the source of many issues for many people. It seems things have changed some in the last few years, so I decided to give it a try. Looking at the docs, it appears that there are 3 ways to integrate things: https://tasmota.github.io/docs/Home-Assistant/

1. Tasmota Integration - this is beta and it wasn't clear what benefit it provides, so I skipped it.
2. MQTT Discovery - I think I accidentally tried this and it found something I didn't expect to be there and didn't find the two devices I expected to be on the broker I provided
3. configuration.yaml editing - this looked like it would probably be what I really needed to get the control I think I need, but it didn't just work when I made the changes that the docs said needed to be made and no clue on how to troubleshoot it

So, I went back and read the docs again. MQTT Discovery needs the device set up with particular setoptionXX values, so I did that and got some success. It looks like there is a lot to learn to get anything out of it, but it does appear to solve the big issue I have with OpenHAB. HA has the concept of stale sensors. So, if a sensor goes offline, HA knows about it and can do something (like alert) about it. At least, it appears to be able to indicate the sensor is not available. It is probably possible to do that in OpenHAB, but would need to be done on each sensor/value.

I use a lot of DS18B20 sensors for temperature measurement for control systems. I have a long history with these and they are fairly reliable in good conditions. But, I use some in very difficult conditions (compost pile being the extreme one, where temps can go up to 160 degrees F, 70+C, and very moist conditions). So, I have to replace sensors every once in a while.

So, here is the question. How do I change the name of the sensors in HA. As an example, I have a device that is named GoatTemp. It has two temp sensors. They end up being called GoatTemp DS18B20-1 Temperature and GoatTemp DS18B20-2 Temperature. And, I just figured it out. It is really easy. From the entities page, select the sensor that was created and then just type the name you want in the Name field. The field had grayed out text, which is one of the standard ways of indicating a read-only field, so I didn't try typing in it. It appears HA uses this to indicate the default, which (in this case) can be overwritten.

Well, I answered my own question, but if you have any other tips for things that might not be obvious to a new user?

There is also the question of how I could add a DS18B20 sensor based on its ID, instead of the location that Tasmota picks for it. I think I could write a JSONPath expression to get the value and adding it to the config yaml might work. Not sure it is worth it, because now that I know more about the integration it does appear to take some of the work out of it