As a homeowner who’s gradually integrating smart devices into my home, I’ve recently added the Shelly Plus PM Mini to monitor my balcony’s solar panels. It’s been a smooth installation, but I encountered a challenge when trying to integrate it into Home Assistant (HA). The device doesn’t have a built-in integration, so I had to rely on MQTT to pull the data.
The sensor provides a comprehensive JSON payload, but I only needed the apower value. Initially, I was unsure how to extract this specific data point. After some research, I realized I could use HA’s MQTT传感器功能，通过指定主题和状态值来实现。现在，我成功地创建了一个传感器，实时显示我的太阳能发电情况。
This experience taught me the importance of understanding MQTT topics and how to parse JSON data within HA. It’s a great reminder that even if a device isn’t natively supported, there are often workarounds using built-in features. I’d love to hear from others who’ve successfully integrated similar devices or have tips for handling MQTT data in HA!