Plex - sensor for individual players

Configuration
1

I had an automation working back in HomeAssistant I think 60, running in a virtual python environment, where I could tell if my Roku was watching a movie, or watching TV or was playing or paused or stopped. It worked fantastic for about 3 days.
I even recorded a video and posted it on Facebook all bragging like.

Then I upgraded the HomeAssistant instance, and it broke, but I didn’t work on it as I almost immediately after that changed over to a HASSIO instance in a different virtual machine.

I’m searching on my own, and trying my best to retrace my steps, but I can’t figure out where I lost the ability to track the Plex instance on my Roku, and what it was doing at any point in time.

The automation was this… it is my tracking point to figure out where I’ve gone wrong with either tracking my Plex server as a sensor, or tracking the players as media_players. If anyone could even just let me know where I’ve gotten lost, I am happy to work on it myself. I miss that bragging point.

# dim the lights if a movie at night
alias: movies night lights

trigger:

  - platform: state
    entity_id: sensor.plex_status
    to: 'playing'

condition:

  - condition: state
    entity_id: sensor.roku_plex
    state: 'movie'
  - condition: state
    entity_id: group.living_room
    state: 'on'

action:

  - service: script.record_livingroom
  - service: script.movies_lights
  - service: input_boolean.turn_on
    entity_id: input_boolean.we_dimmed

It did work. Honest. I have a video to prove it. As I’ve rebuilt, I’ve lost the original virtual machine, I just had made copies of the original scripts. I could be missing a custom component sensor maybe ?

2

You may be thinking of this?

I’ve never got it or Plex working properly however :stuck_out_tongue:

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3

I had it - once - never to be seen again.
I am not sure if it’s me or a system change between updates and/or HomeAssistant to HASSIO, or even something I missed when building this virtual machine. So many variables, and I changed just about everyone of them, and now it’s not working.

4

Currently I have both Hass.io and a win10 version of HA running but neither work as I think they should with Plex/ or at all :stuck_out_tongue:

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5

Just something not there. I can google the errors I get all night long. I’m not getting anywhere. damn it.

6

The sensor.plex I have has a value as the state. It’s the number of watching in progress.
So you can only trigger on platform : numeirc_state, above: 0

But I still have limited information about the Plex sessions, including that since 0.60, the “include_non_clients” option fails the component… And most clients are not client but session only (Android client, Home Theater app on W10…)

7

It was a custom sensor - note the name (sensor.plex_status). And I believe it did involve non clients - so I’m at a loss.

8

I don’t get it ? The plex sensor works as expected, counts the playing sessions (client or just sessions, music, movie, shows…).
I have a customisation that hides the value if zero, even if I play from the android app (not a “client”), I get the status modified :

  sensor.plex:
    state_card_mode: badges
    templates:
      hidden: "return (state < 1);"

So your automation should work with :

 alias: movies night lights
 trigger:   
    - platform: numeric_state
      entity_id: sensor.plex
      above: 0
9

The purpose of the sensor was to differentiate what was playing on my Roku Plex app - dim the lights if a movie was playing - if paused or stopped - return the lights back to what ever level they were at before they were dimmed.

10

Was this the component what you were looking for? PlexDevices - Custom Media Player Component

I had it working briefly myself but it stopped at some stage. I too was looking to work on these automations again recently and noticed that there was some movement on the thread.

11

I did get that operation back, but I’ve forgotten how I set up the triggers. It’s shifted to the backburner for now, but it does look like it should work again.

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