Well I got it working. I used another method thats kind of a workaround. I took advantage of a plugin thats already written for nuvo serial port control in homebridge (HB). I will outline the steps I took and maybe it will help.
Requirements.
- Nuvo amp with a serial port / rs232
- RS232 to usb cable
- Home assistant (Hass.io)
- A Homebridge instance (no apple devices needed)
Steps
- Setup Homebridge instance. This can be done on its own dedicated hardware or on the device that runs HA. I used a seperate pi I already had running HB, but I see a guide on setting up homebridge in HA using portainer which I have not personally tried.
Pi running HB : Install Homebridge on Raspbian · homebridge/homebridge Wiki · GitHub
(There is other hardware HB can run on, google your preferred install)
OR
Portainer method : Tutorial: add Homebridge to Hass.io using Portainer
(no additional hardware is needed for this method)
Once you have homebridge running and can see the homebridge UI, then you are ready to move on. Scroll down to the number code on the HB front page under the qr code. You will need this later. Front page of HB looks like this:
-
Connect your nuvo amp with the cable to the device running homebridge.
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In homebridge UI, click the menu at the top right and click plugins. In the “search for plugins to install” search bar type nuvo. Install the homebridge nuvo plugin. Once installed , click settings on the plugin and fill out the usb path to the nuvo amp and the number of zones.
Restart homebridge if prompted (from the top right menu, the power button looking thing)
Once restarted, click the top right menu and click accessories. You should see accessories created for each zone and each source (eg 6 zones with 6 sources = 36 accessories created). They will appear as lights. This is normal
If you click on one of these accesories you should be able to control on/off and volume. Depending on which accessory you clicked it will change the input (source). I verified this by standing by one of my keypads and clicking on the tiles to make sure they were turning on/off, switching sources, and adjusting volume.
IMPORTANT : At this point you want to go back to the plugin screen, on the nuvo plugin click the wrench and click bridge settings. Turn on the switch to initiate the nuvo-platform child bridge and restart homebridge again.
Your bridge settings will not say “bridge paired” until later. For now it will show a qr code. Just make sure the switch is on.
Once you have full control of your keypads through HB AND have the child bridge setup, time to go on.
- Now open HA. Go to integrations. The connected homebridge instance will be added with the Homekit Controller integration. Your auto discovery may pick up the child bridge on its own and you can click the configure button.
If it doesnt come up by itself click add integration and find Homekit Controller and add it.
This will search your network and should pick up the homebridge-nuvo bridge setup in previous step. Click on it to begin the configuration.
During configuration you will be asked for a homekit code. This is found on the FRONT PAGE of homebridge under the qr code looking thing. A number in the form of xxx-xx-xxx. Enter this code to finish the setup.
Clicking on the newly installed integration you should see all 36 (or however many you have) entities created for each source and zone. They will still look like lights
You can optionally disable the sources you don’t use from the entity list and then go into customizations to change the icons to speakers for the ones you do.
- Add to lovelace and enjoy. Use the brightness slider to adjust volume.
SIde Notes:
Yes, the homebridge plugin adds the zones/sources as lights. So it appears in HA as a light as well. Customization basically fixes this. It may still say brightness when your adjusting volume but i dont care cuz its working
Feel free to customize.
When turning on a zone the default volume is always somewhere around 50%. This is a safety feature of the HB plugin to not blast you with music when turning a zone on and protect your speakers. Very nice feature.
The homebridge-nuvo plugin works very well and credit goes here : GitHub - Willmac16/homebridge-nuvo: A Homebridge Plugin for Nuvo Whole House Audio Systems
He is very responsive and fixed an issue I raised when testing this method out.
I know this is a long read and also a departure of what this thread is working towards (native integration). But it is a working alternative I’ve been very happy with. Hope it helps someone.