Thanks for your response. This is definitely the right solution for my conditions: (When configured as a text channel the values show without the double quotes.) I have been able to consistently create number type channels from these single value string payloads by following theses steps in paperUI>
(1) Add channel to thing through config>Things>selectedThing (+)
(2) choose NumberValue when adding channel
(3) provide ChannelId, Label, MQTT State Topic, Absolute Min & Max,
NO TRANSFORMATIONS, units of measure (temperature)
(4) link to item (o) create new item - type should be Number, category temperature, Dimension Temperature, then (check)
(5) verify resuts in Control Tab
I did try this previously with failed results – not sure why it didnt work - initially UI responds with NAN until a new message is received - this may have mislead me.
Thanks!!