Anyone know how to get the new Media Browser to work with Plex? I have my personal music collection on Plex so using the Media Browser would be great.
The Spotify integration provides a specific media player component from whence you can invoke the Media Browser. However, the Plex integration does not provide an equivalent.
The Media Browser works really well with Spotify. Anyone know how I can get the same level of integration with Plex?
The browser is exposed on the media_player entities that the Plex integration creates for individual Plex clients. I’d like to add playback of Plex media to other player types but that’s not possible today.
The media_player created by the add-on only sprang into life once I had switched on the TV, started Plex for Samsung TV and then run plex.scan_for_clients in Home Assistant. Once the app is terminated on the TV, it cannot be restarted from HA. Basically, you have to be watching something using Plex already to allow HA to control it. So really not very useful.
With Spotify I can start the playback on any Chromecast Audio at any time. That is how it should work.
Yes, that would be ideal but not possible today. The CC is a dedicated device that’s always available/listening for playback commands while Plex clients are applications that run on non-dedicated devices. The Plex API only allows communicating with Plex apps that are already running–it cannot tell arbitrary devices to launch the Plex app.
I’m looking into casting Plex media directly to Chromecast devices via HA but don’t have an ETA yet.
So you will need a mix of code from SpotCast GitHub - fondberg/spotcast: Home assistant custom component to start Spotify playback on an idle chromecast device as well as control spotify connect devices and Plex Assistant âť± Plex Assistant
Good luck with that, I would be happy to try anything out.
Plex Assistant just uses the Pychromecast and PlexAPI libraries in order to cast. @jjlawren has recently added features to PlexAPI to make some upcoming Plex Assistant features possible, so I don’t believe that he’ll be needing any code from my project 
The first step towards this will be included in the next release, allowing to cast Plex media directly to Chromecast devices: https://next.home-assistant.io/integrations/cast/#plex. It’s in the beta now if you’d like to try it out early.
The next step is adding Plex media to Chromecast device media browsers. No ETA on this yet.
any update on this? i’ve seen on some screenshots users having plex in their media browser in the recent versions of HA, but for me it still shows up empty…
Browsing Plex media is available for Plex, Cast, and Sonos clients. If that’s what you’re trying to use and you’ve set up the Plex integration, you should be seeing (at least) Plex media to browse. Check your logs for any errors.
nothing in my media browser, and also nothing relevant in the logs.
also i don’t see my amazon echos as potential players in the media board
You need to switch the destination player in the bottom right. You’re on “Web Browser” which shows what you can play directly in your current browser. Switch that to the Shield for Cast options.
so just coming back to this issue: yes, selecting shield casts the plex content on my nvidia shield, but that it not an option as i want to view the content in my web browser.
also the same problem is appearing with reolink camera: i can view the recordings from the camera on my nvidia shield, but not in the web browser. its a real pity, as when i am at work, i want to see the recording on my computer and not on my home tv…
