Spotcast - custom component to start playback on an idle chromecast device

gureyes · August 16, 2019, 6:04am

There have been several times when music stops playing at exactly 1 hour of play. Has anyone seen this or know if its a google groups thing, chromecast component, or this component?

fondberg · August 16, 2019, 7:40am

I’ve experienced that music stopped after 1 hour. I think it is because the token is valid for 1 hour. I’m not sure how to fix this because the token is set using pychromecast whilst launching the spotify app on the chromecast device. What is needed is to sniff the traffic between a phone or a chrome browser running the web player and see if there are any updates of the token.

PathogenV · August 22, 2019, 4:58am

I installed using HACS and I think everything is set up correctly as far as username, pass and all that. I’m getting a client error.

400 Client Error: Bad Request for url: https://accounts.spotify.com/api/login

fondberg · August 23, 2019, 5:20pm

You might have run into the issue with wrong spoitipy version sd described in Spotcast - custom component to start playback on an idle chromecast device

Emphyrio · August 24, 2019, 7:39am

Just wanted to share this script that prevents the bleep-bloop sound when you start casting. Essentially it mutes the media player, plays a random 1 second track to activate the casting device, then unmutes and starts playing. Now the first thing I hear in the morning is my favorite song, so much better than ‘bleep-bloop’

start_playlist:
  alias: 'Start playlist'
  sequence:
    - service: media_player.volume_mute
      data:
        entity_id: media_player.<your google home device>
        is_volume_muted: true
    - service: spotcast.start
      data:
        device_name: '<your Spotify device name>'
        uri: 'spotify:track:5V3b2UB9tCAHuqXj2b2EP7'  # track with 1 second of silence 
    - service: media_player.volume_mute
      data:
        entity_id: media_player.<your google home device>
        is_volume_muted: false
    - service: media_player.volume_set  #setting the volume is optional ofcourse
      data:
        entity_id: media_player.<your google home device>
        volume_level: 0.20
    - service: spotcast.start
      data_template:
        device_name: '<your Spotify device name'
        uri: "spotify:playlist:{{ playlist_id }}"
        random_song: true

Calling the script from e.g. a Lovelace button:

        tap_action:
          action: call-service
          service: script.start_playlist
          service_data:
            playlist_id: 37i9dQZF1DX9DHKgiu5R9j

fondberg · August 24, 2019, 5:03pm

That was a smart script. I’m wondering if I could easier do this from python code.

Emphyrio · August 24, 2019, 6:15pm

Probably

PathogenV · August 24, 2019, 6:55pm

How can I check my spotipy version and replace it with your fork?

fondberg · August 25, 2019, 1:53pm

That is the big question I also had in my post…
If you can’t find a way I might have to release my fork under a different namespace

spudje · August 25, 2019, 7:56pm

New to the forum and Home Assistant. Just got up an running and basically only have some media players and sensors configured. No automation using services yet.

I came across this custom component and it looks interesting. I have some questions though.

First, documentation is not clear for a HA n00b.
“Add the following to your config”
What config? HA configuration.yaml?
Add it as what? media_player, sensor, something else?

Is the main Spotify component required? I don’t expect to be using HA for controlling Spotify.

What I hope to achieve with this custom component is the following, hope it’s possible as an automation.

When I’m home and my Pioneer media_player is on and I open the Spotify app on my phone automatically “spotify connect” it to my chromecast (connected to the Pioneer) and set the correct input on the Pioneer. So not start any specific playlist, play what I choose in the phone app.

Similarly I want the corresponding automation for my girlfriend using her own Spotify account (and phone).

Thanks a lot in advance for any help!

PalmMx · August 25, 2019, 9:10pm

Thank you very much for this component!

However, the token issue (only 1 hour music) is a pity. As an end-user, do I need to write a script that relaunch the Spotcast playback every 60 minutes?

fondberg · August 26, 2019, 5:45pm

The term configuration that you will come across in Home Assistant docs and forums is the configuration.yaml which is the main configuration for home assistant.
So you can just add the spotcast: as a top level struct (in HA terms it is called platform) in there according to the docs you read.

The Spotify media_player component that is built in is not required.

Regarding your use case with your phone and your chromecast connected to your Pioneer it looks like this component can do a bit of what you need, namely starting spotify on the chromcast device.

If I understand correctly you want an automation if your phone starts spotify, can you elaborate a bit on this?

With this component you can transfer your current playback (if any) to that chromecast see transfer playback.

fondberg · August 26, 2019, 5:52pm

Hi, I want to again state that this is an open source project that is provided free of charge and is developed on a non-paid basis. As such it is up to the community to help out.
What you can do is help out investigate what is needed to keep the playback for a longer time so we can add it to the components code or any of its libraries it uses.
For example, can you test on the webplayer (https://open.spotify.com) in Chrome by starting playback on a chromecast and then closing the browser, will the playback continue after 60mins? Same test with doing it from the phone and killing the app after playback.
If you find how to extend it I am more that willing to help you with how to add it as code.

spudje · August 26, 2019, 7:57pm

Super, thanks! Seems like a plugin I can use indeed. Hope to try it out soon.
OK, I wasn’t aware you could add custom toplevel structs. i thought they all needed to be part of the standard ones.

Basicly the use case is. I’m too lazy to go through the Spotify Connect process everytime I open my Spotify app on the phone when I’m home

Craig_McGowan · September 19, 2019, 4:38pm

Hey,

Seem to have a breaking change in 0.99;

Component error: spotcast - No module named ‘pychromecast.controllers.homeassistant’

fondberg · September 19, 2019, 6:31pm

I heard that. I haven’t had any time to check it out. Was hoping that someone could help out and create a PR for it. But if no one does it I’ll see if I have some time in the weekend

Sennevds · September 19, 2019, 7:09pm

I saw in the pullrequest off @bendikrb that he added a fix in his pr https://github.com/fondberg/spotcast/pull/27

fondberg · September 21, 2019, 10:00am

Yes! I took his and added some small stuff and releases 2.1. Please test it. NOTE! it requires HA 0.99 now

Oldolo · September 21, 2019, 6:10pm

I added spotcast with the help of HACS as a custom repository some time ago. With this release I am not able to upgrade. All I get when I select the intergration is this:

Anyone have any tips for resolving it?
I dont seem to be able to delete the intergration or anything from HACS interface.

ludeeus · September 21, 2019, 6:13pm

It’s because of a .DS_Store file that manage to trick itself in to the repository, upgrade HACS to 0.14.2 before you try upgrading it.