Sounds interesting but why use this when the existing Plex component already report the same stuff. What am I missing here?
It doesn’t - please review the earlier comments and images.
Web hooks are good for simply action / reaction (media plays, turn on lights). I use something similar for my Blue Iris setup. If that’s all you need, then use the web hooks.
This not only allows you to do the same but it also:
- Provides you with a visual map of what’s occurring on your plex server (looks cool too)
- Allows you to manually respond to events
- Allows you to manually control players (i.e. a single page to remote control every client connected to your plex server)
- Easier setup and maintenance (nothing to configure on your plex server, nothing new to learn/manage)
- Doesn’t require a plex pass subscription
- Extensible - Ex. In this component, you can expose any plex property (ex. maybe you want an alert when your kid starts playing a rated R movie)
OK, so I got all the code woking but need until the weekend to test and optimize. Maybe I can get all this working with the plex API (where right now a small piece is still REST).
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Great to hear that. I am actually using a custom component for Plex from Workout Script w/ Plex Video Control . From there, I modified it so that I can create a script or an automation to play a playlist from my Plex account.
Is your version able to support playing a playlist or any media type as well?
Problem - it works but my original code (which doesn’t reliably control playback) is much faster. I mean almost instantaneous vs 5-10 second lag using media_player.plex’s method of using the python apir. Might be because the API is communicating through Plex.tv? Don’t know. I’m going to experiment with a version that uses my original code for everything except for media control (I’ll use the python API).
First time I ever saw a dev say that ‘much faster’ is a problem. LOL
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Send me all your code and I’ll incorporate the feature
NO WAY - Got it working off your linked post (with a movie anyway - going to test the other types)
It all works (remote play of movies, tv shows, and music play lists). I’m going to try and add playing individual tracks/artists/albums in addition to playlists). Pretty cool. Will update shortly.
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PLEXDEVICES 0.1 - Renamed and ready for testing
Scroll up to the first post for links to the latest Code and Documentation
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OK - that is cool. I will try it out this weekend.
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Thank you very much for your work @JesseWebDotCom. This is a huge improvement from the official Plex component. I hope this will become the official component for Plex.
I have tested to play a playlist on 2 players. 1 is Android app and another one is Plex Media Player installed on RPi. Only the Android app is working.
I don’t have a pi plex player so you’ll have to debug and send me the errors you see. Also send me a screenshot
New update coming: I figured out how to do dynamic group membership - so I’ll have this component auto create and populate an “all plex devices” group. If I get fancy I’ll even add an “all active plex devices” and “all inactive plex devices”. This gives your more flexibility in the gui and in automations plus you might even be able to use it with a template sensor to get rid of the plex activity monitor sensor.
I guess I’ll wait to update then. Will this be an optional thing and how would this work with the Universal Media Player?
I’ll make the auto grouping optional. I don’t know anything about the universal thing.
Universal Media Player allows you to group all of your media players together. Then there’s only one instance on the page and whatever media player is running at the time appears in that player and is controlled by it.
EDIT: I’ll test this and let you know what I find out.