Having a touch time getting Chime to work from a AppDaemon application.
The goal is to take the text created by my local AI instance and then have CHIME TTS string together an alert and use Google AI TTS to create the spoken content which will play on my Alexa devices.
I’m calling the chime_tts.say_url (for what I’ve read is needed for playback on Alexas)
The errors I keep getting are:
AI or TTS Error: not enough values to unpack (expected 2, got 1) or ChimeTTS Error: not enough values to unpack (expected 2, got 1)
My python code is below - can someone help me out and see if I missed anything…I’m rusty on my python and the AI engines say this is a bug in ChimeTTS
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
# ---------------- CHIME_TTS ANNOUNCE ----------------
if alexa_service:
try:
for device in alexa_service:
self.log(f"Sending ChimeTTS say_url to {device} with voice Lapetus")
result = self.call_service(
"chime_tts.say_url",
message=tts_message,
tts_platform="tts.google_ai_tts",
voice="Lapetus",
target={"entity_id": device}
)
self.log(f"ChimeTTS result: {result}")
except Exception as e:
self.log(f"AI or TTS Error: {e}")
self.last_announced[alert_id] = now
triggered_severities.append(severity)
except Exception as e:
self.log(f"AI Error: {e}")
Like many here, I hit the Chime TTS breakage on recent HA (silent playback on 2025.9+, "plays but no TTS" on 2025.8+, etc.). The integration looks unmaintained right now (last release Dec 2024), so I put together a fork that fixes the main current-HA issues: silent playback / media content id (#289, #253), TTS platform selection (#291, #308, #241), the services.yaml parse error, cache double-apply, Sonos volume, blocking calls, and more. It's validated on HA 2026.6 and 2025.1 with a test suite, and the fixes are also up as PR #319 on the original repo.
It’s unfortunate that the developer hasn’t been available to carry on maintenance for Chime TTS. Much as I’ve liked the tool, I’ve been looking for a supported solution. Simultaneously, I’ve been looking for a better solution for notifications in general.
I‘ve been very impressed with “Ticker” notification tool from HACS. It was lacking the “chime” capability of Chime TTS, but that functionality was added in a very good manner by the Ticker developer, after several of us raised a GitHub “feature request” issue.
So just an FYI, as to where I’m headed to meet this need.
What is the correct way to install your repo with an existing version of Chime TTS? I'm assuming its a delete of the original repo new configuration and setup. Just wanted to check before removing the old repo. Thanks
Art
@kartcon Sorry, my last reply was short, I was traveling in a very poor signal area. Here's the full rundown.
You don't need to redo your configuration or automations. The fork uses the same chime_tts domain, so your existing setup and chime_tts.say calls keep working. You're really just swapping the downloaded code. Steps:
In HACS, open the existing Chime TTS, use the three-dot menu and choose Remove. This only removes the files, it leaves your integration config entry and automations alone.
Find Chime TTS again (now from the fork) and download it. To get the test build, turn on "show beta versions" in the download dialog and pick v1.2.5-fork-rc2.
Restart Home Assistant.
That's it, no reconfiguration. HACS may refuse to add the custom repo while the original is still installed, since the names clash, so removing the original first (above as step 1) avoids that.
What's in this build that you may care about (use rc2 if so):
Sonos: fixes the authentication bans some of us were seeing, where Sonos kept re-fetching an expired URL. It now hands Sonos an unauthenticated local URL instead.
Google Cast / Nest: stops the start of the chime or first word getting clipped while the speaker spins up.
@derekcentrico
Thanks for the follow up explanation. You initial brief reply did help, as I discovered that you can't run two instances of Chime TTS. That finding made the removal and reinstall method much less worrisome. I think the long version will be helpful for those just getting into Home Assistant, and again thank you for following up!
Can you add these instructions to the fork? They were very helpful, but a little hard to find. Currently your fork points back to the original instructions.
Yeah, so currently I’m waiting on HAAS to drop the old source so I can submit my fork to takeover. Then, I’ll change the repo the rest of the way to be standalone.