Today is my birthday. I’m turning 33. And to celebrate, I want to share a preview of a project that I have been working on: Home Assistant Cast. It’s the Home Assistant Lovelace interface, but for Cast-enabled devices like Chromecasts or Google Assistant devices with screens.
![](upload://850z8BaOTzofLU4iDU4uTKkmNBA.jpeg)
Photo of the Google Nest Hub running the Home Assistant Cast interface.
It will work with any Cast enabled device, and if available, will allow the user to use the touch screen to interact with the interface. The interface is built with Lovelace, so it’s the same powerful features and real-time interaction that you are used to today.
Chromecast apps are usually launched from a browser or a mobile app on Android or iOS. But we wouldn’t be Home Assistant if we had a solution. Home Assistant has been integrated with Chromecasts for over 5 years. This means that you will be able to launch Home Assistant Cast as part of your automations. For example, you will be able to show information on your TV if a visitor has been detected at the frontdoor. Nice!
For a full demo walkthrough of how it works, check the video below:
Looks cool, I haven’t quite come around to having mics installed all over the house … yet so no Google (stealing? the name) Home Assistant here yet.
But that functionality (beyond the GHA), isn’t that just what I already have with my old Surface Windows tablet/PC and Chrome + my HA??? Just with all the Windows world incl…
Still not convinced I need the GHA, Alexa, Samsung TV remote+MIC, Sonos+mic etc. The cloud is a thing I try to avoid with my HA as much as possible.
It won’t require a subscription. Your Home Assistant instance will need to be accessible outside of your network if you want to cast to a Chromecast outside of your network (as the Chromecast needs to talk to your instance)
It only took long to load because I synchronized it with the story. As soon as it said connected it could start showing a UI.
And to to run it from the Google Nest itself, you should be able to expose a Home Assistanr script via the Smart Home integration of Google Assistant that will open Home Assistant Cast.