Best option for local music playback via Home Assistant and Google Assistant?

Hi all,

My single goal in setting up a Home Assistant server was to regain the ability to call for local music from Google Assistant. I haven’t acheived it yet. My latest attempt was with forked-daap. It would do playback control, but not track/playlist selection. I’ve heard Logitech Media Server could be the answer, and I’ve tried that, but never truly finished the setup. I was also referred to the Plex integration, which sounded ideal as I already run a Plex server, but my attempts at that were so long ago I don’t remember why I abandoned it.

I’m beginning to see I have likely been missing the bit that tells GA how to talk to whatever my media device is (and maybe any one of those options would be great if I had the right conversation tools.)

So I’ve started again from scratch. I’ve got a clean(ish) install of Hass.io x64 on a RPi 3+ (would x32 have been a better choice?) I’ve got the bare minimum of add-ons installed (File Editor, ssh Terminal, Samba) and I’ve used datactl to move my data files to an external SSD. I also have the GA integrations setup on the Google side, but have not made the HA-side configs yet on this new install (it was working.) What’s your advice on where to go from here?

Thanks for your insight. :slight_smile:

The ability to send Plex music directly to Cast devices was added a while back as documented here: Google Cast - Home Assistant. Have you tried that method?

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Thank you for replying! :slight_smile: I have been looking through that documentation again this weekend, but I’m lost. :confused: First, where do I put the required code? Directly in config yaml? In another or new yaml? Do I need to manually create a media_content_id for every song/album in my library? How are the JSON files created? Where should they be stored and what should they be called? Once this is done, will I be able to use voice control, or will I then need to configure DialogFlow?

I’m keen to do the work required, just not sure exactly what the work entails! If there is a more detailed “Plex for HA Dummies” tutorial out there, please feel free to point me to it!

Thanks again for your response. I haven’t had a lot of traction on this forum, so I really appreciate you taking the time. :slight_smile:

OMG, I think I’ve got it! Plex with Plex Assistant and IFTTT for the win! Thank you again for answering this dummy’s question!

Maybe good if you can share what you’ve found, so other people in the future can build it too with your shared knowledge.

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If I ever perfect my setup I’ll be sure to. :slight_smile: