Integrate template integration into automations UI

[Zocker1999NET]

Issue / Missing Feature

The current UI for template binary_sensors / sensors is lacking a lot of great features which are present in its YAML base. When comparing the UI to its doc I currently miss e.g.:

• triggers
  • allows the templates to use data from e.g. events and webhooks
• conditions
• actions
  • allows the templates to use values returned from arbitrary service calls, e.g. weather forecasts
• delay_on & delay_off (binary_sensor only)
  • allows to work with fluctuating values properly, e.g. when reading energy meters
• auto_off (binary_sensor only)

Reasoning Despite Overlap with Automations

Technically speaking, automations and template entities are highly overlapping.
But in my opinion they can serve different purposes:

• Automations are there to interact with devices and so "change the world". They are there so I can rebuild annoying but required habits.
• Template entities are there to collect & reflect information. Especially they make information more accessible to access myself and to automations.
  • Also they are useful for decoupling certain concepts which can then be reused across different automations.

But, the templates advanced "automation"-like features combined with the ability to blueprint them makes them way more powerful than automations. Because they can introduce button, select or other entities to create "virtual devices". These entities can define a clear interfaces for other arbitrary users/automations/templates to interact with them. And with their automation-like features directly inside that template, the virtual entities can be made to behave like users expect them to.

And this with the clear advantage that everything is nicely grouped to make it easy for users to manage them. And because they can even blueprinted, really complex automations can be packed into a single blueprint, easy to import & configure.

As an example why I think this is so powerful: I think the generic thermostat functionality, which is currently built into the core, could be replicated by a single template blueprint. (Assuming a template thermostat would be available, it could even provide a thermostat template entity for better UX.) But this does not (just) mean that the generic thermostat implementation of the core is no longer required to be in the core, this rather means that users could easily customize that thermostat implementation in case they need some functionality, without resorting to custom integrations.

Possible Solution

(I have shared similar ideas, which rather focus on the core as well, which overlap with this, in the forum as a feature request to the core.)

To present this powerful advantage of the template integration, I think their functionality should be integrated into the automations UI.
In my mind this could look like making it possible for automations to define template entities they expose, control & interact with. When editing an automation/template, show triggers, conditions, actions and finally (template) entities.

If required for technical reasons, or if others find that both concepts should still be separated for UX reasons, automations & template entities still might be separated. But reusing the UI in the background should be big plus for devs & users alike.

I am unsure what should happen to the current placement of template entities in the helpers section. IMO it makes sense to place at least "simple template entities" to a different place than automations which only act upon existing entities. But because template blueprints can be seen as something like "custom integrations lite", and Home-Assistant already presents some of those, like generic thermostat or mold indicator, in the helper section, maybe the helpers UI could be converged to mainly house template entities.