I have a bunch of TV’s (LG webos) all with Chromecast on them. I have HA integrated with Google Assistant for most functions.
I would like to include music, and would prefer to have a local music library. I really don’t care what kind, and can host on linux or windows.
I want to be able to say something like “Hey Google, play a Hard Day’s Night by the Beatles on Living Room Cast”. Or some variation.
I do not want to subscribe to a monthly music service to make that happen.
I’ve spent about a day trying various combinations without luck; some work in pieces, some don’t, but none seem to get me toward the total path.
My fundamental problem is I do not know what SHOULD work toward this aim; too many possibilities. Or even if any combination will really work.
Could someone provide a pointer? For locally stored music, how can I get “Hey google, play xxxx” to work? What components should I be working on? Or should I give up, because Google insists on streaming from the cloud?
First, I have given up on having Google be able to play locally stored music. That just seems to open a whole mess of complexity, and/or just isn’t possible. It is easy to do specific, hard coded items (e.g. store a specific track and activate it in any number of ways through HA), but in terms of indexing a library and selecting tracks or albums or playlists from it, it appears a non-starter.
So in that regard, I’m taking all the music I have digitally in iTunes, and on CD’s (ripping to disk) and putting in Media Monkey to organize it, then mass-uploading it to Google Play Music. From there it is trivial to play on any cast-enable device. The quality may not be terrific but if it’s degraded by the upload processing i can’t hear the difference.
Then I just ignore media monkey, really. Periodically I’ll refresh the list. In their new version 5 they will have a sync for Google Play Music. At that point it becomes auto-magic to upadate and I just load new music into Media Monkey and it updates.
I realize Google Play Music is going to be discontinued but that’s far enough out I will deal with it then, and presume the same sorts of features will be present.
The downside is it’s not local. So when the storm hits and knocks out my internet I’ll have to listen locally on my PC and cast. I can deal with that.
Anyway, that’s my solution so far. Comments welcomed.
I still use Logitech Media Server. Open source. They no longer make the hardware, but there is plenty for sale on ebay etc, and easy to build your own high quality gear too.
@nickrout, I had not looked at that, somehow it never came up, which means I never ran across what @FunkyBoT referenced. I will look more deeply, though it seems to still require google (ok, I want that) but adds a necessary connection to spotify and a lot more complexity. I guess it keeps my music local, which I did want. More reading to do, thank you both.
Postscript edit: Spotify account not required, apparently. Interesting.