Play Spotify on old speaker

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#1

I have an old speaker with a Nobsound amplifier which adds Bluetooth functionality, I can use it for example to play Spotify from my iPhone or from Spotify on my LG smart tv.

I would like to use it as a media player in Home Assistant (e.g. for automatically start playing Spotify at wake up in the morning).

I’m doing a little research and it seems to me that is currently not possible to use a Bluetooth speaker to play music from Home Assistant.

What are my options? Should I convert it into an Alexa/Google enabled smart speaker? With which additional devices?
Is it confirmed that bluetooth is not an option for music in Home Assistant?

Thanks

#2

I’m not sure, but I think it should be possible.

Why don’t you try it? Add spotify to your home assistant setup and see if the speaker shows up as a source to play music.

#3

I added a chromecast-audio to my bluetooth speaker. Then replaced it with a set of pebble USB speakers connected to the chromecast. The problem was that the bluetooth speaker would take 3-5 seconds to wake up when audio started playing, missing the first part of messages. Yours may be different, especially if not battery powered.

#4

Well I suppose I should do something to set up a Bluetooth connection between the speaker, the Home Assistant host, and Home Assistant itself. My question was exactly that, I didn’t read anywhere of how making Home Assistant to connect to a Bluetooth speaker

#5

I’m talking about music here, so an initial delay wouldn’t be a problem I guess.
So you’re saying that you succeeded in connecting a Bluetooth speaker directly to Home Assistant? Or you only tried through the Chromecast Audio?

#6

I don’t know how the Spotify component works exactly. I assume that spotify makes the connection to the speaker and not home assistant. For example I have multiple speakers which I used with Spotify Connect and all this speakers show up as a source for the spotify media player, however the different speakers don’t show up as individual media player entities.

I may be completely wrong here, but just give it a try and see if your bluetooth speaker shows up as a source, before you buy additional hardware.

#7

Only through the chromecast. I looked for ages for a bluetooth solution. I was using a raspi with bluetooth at the time but all solutions I found would not work with hassio.

#8

I understand, unfortunately I was having some problems when I tried :sweat_smile: