Tell Google Assistant to play music on speaker group?

Configuration Voice Assistant
1

When I want to play music on my Chromecast Audio speaker groups I usually talk to my Nest Mini to play music. It will then play music from Youtube Music on the desired group/speaker.
Is it possible to emulate this behaviour with Home Assistant, to be able to press a button in Home Assistant to make this happen?

I know you can cast from Home Assistant to Chromecast’s, but that means I have to use a media player to do this, and I don’t want to install Youtube Music integration from HACS, I just need a button to start playing, then I will be able to control the music from my app on my phone or from Home Assistant media player.

Is this possible?

2

I’m trying to do the exact same thing. I really like the music that Google Music plays by default when you just say “Hey Google Play Music.” It is so well optimized to what I like without being too repetitive and introducing new music that also like.

So I want to set a button on a scene control to just do that.

I believe the correct solve is finding if an actual URL (content id) is associated with that automatic “playlist.”

So far I’ve totally failed.

I can tell you what doesn’t work so you don’t waste your time.

The official Google Assistant SDK that lets you send TTS commands does not allow you to trigger media playback or routines. So you can’t just emulate saying it.

The unofficial YouTube Music integration works for starting playback, but you need to specify a playlist. This is the problem of not having the content ID for that default list.

This defeats the purpose, but if it gets you thinking out of the box, then take that for what it’s worth: I do have an automation where I have one Google Home “shout” at another one to trigger media playback. It was for my kid before she was old enough to know how to use a TV remote to watch cartoons. So I did they so she wouldn’t wake us.

Actually, I suppose if you had two spare Google Homes in your garage, this could work. You press a button. Then one talks to the other outside of your hearing range and runs a routine to get your whole house audio going. :person_shrugging: