hello.
anyone here use a stream deck to control home assistant and music assistant? i’m thinking about buying one for that purpose. is it connected via USB? can i connect it directly to my home assistant (a raspberry pi 4)? do i need windoze to set it up? i use ubuntu, so if i need windoze to set up the stream deck, this project is dead in the water. how does it all work?
my system: main computer is a PC running ubuntu 26.04. i also have
2 raspberry pi 4s, one for home assistant and music assistant, the other for pi-hole
2 sonos devices, one in the bedroom and one in the living room
a NAS for storing the media files
all connected using a unifi network with 1 access point.
I don’t know anything about music assistant, but you can absolutely control home assistant with a stream deck.
I use Bitfocus Companion. I have this installed as a docker container running on my nas. This is where all of your buttons etc are set up.
Then, on my main machine, I have the Companion Satellite installed.
You configure the satellite to talk to the main install of Companion.
The stream deck is plugged into my main machine, without the Elgato software installed. The satellite picks it up, and whatever buttons you have configured in the main software is shown on the deck.
You can even have stream decks plugged into multiple machines, and they all get the same button layout.
For connecting the companion software to home assistant, its as simple as adding the home assistant plugin into companion, setting the url of your home assistant instance, and an API key.
Most of your switches, scripts, entities etc are passed into companion via the “preset” buttons
i have ZERO experience with that whole docker thing. i wouldn’t even know where to begin. how do i install docker in my synology NAS? and then what?
bitfocus wants me to create an account before i can download anything, which just rubs me the wrong way. can i delete the account later or does it refuse to work when it can’t access the account?
I have no experience with a synology nas, so I can’t help with that.
As for the bitfocus account, I’ve only had to use it to download the satellite. the docker image is freely downloadable, and the satellite doesn’t require a sign-in (at least, I dont remember it doing so - it’s been a very long time since I installed/set it up)
if these are a deal-breaker for you, then maybe this isn’t the way to go for you. it works well for me and my situation. Good luck in your adventures!