interested too… thank you
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Take a look at esp32 squeezelite. This runs an instance of squeezelite on an esp32. You will also need to be running Logitech Media Server (LMS) which is a add-on for Home Assistant.
Esp32 squeezelite can directly output audio to a Bluetooth speaker or an I2S DAC.
I’ve been using this for multi room audio as well as broadcasting home assistant audio messages. LMS is very well supported by home assistant.
https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?112697-ANNOUNCE-Squeezelite-ESP32-(dedicated-thread)
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+1
Agree, it’s common to have bluetooth speakers and would appreciate connecting it from HA
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That would be cool, but also bluetooth headsets. Especially if it would do handovers between the Hass bluetooth proxies… Guess I’m dreaming out loud 
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LMS and PiCore player on Raspberry Pi does a great job of connecting blue tooth speakers. As noted in earlier posts it is well integrated into HA as well.
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So far made it working with Volumio on Raspberry Pi 1. Volumio also seems to work also on Raspberry Pi Zero W.
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Since this year is the year of the voice this would make sense also.
Imagine that you talk to home assistant assist using a mic and then you want the response outputed using a speaker instad of a screen.
This would be awesome.
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Yeah. To be honest, I’m more excited by the option to have HA speak to me and speak info updates when I wake up or get home, than I’m excited by being able to talk to my HA (although that’s pretty cool, too).
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Yep - similar to alexa, this would be a geat feature!
Desperately need Bluetooth speaker function! I have basic unmanaged Bluetooth cube speakers I want to play stuff 24/7 please!
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Ideal situation for me would be combination of ESPHome’s bluetooth proxy functionality and Bluetooth speakers/headphones.
So Have ESP32s in many rooms, that talk over wifi with ESPHome / Home Assistant backend and connect over Bluetooth with Bluetooth speakers / headphones in the respective rooms. Basically ESPHome should support A2DP Bluetooth profile on ESP32.
Obviously they (The ESP32s instead of the Bluetooth speakers/headphones I’d assume would make more sense) should be seen as mediaplayers in Hass.
Also discussed here: ESP32 with Bluetooth Speaker as Media Player for Music Assistant - #13 by tipouletdomo
I created an ESPHome feature request, so please upvote Support for A2DP Bluetooth profile (mainly audio sender) · Issue #2456 · esphome/feature-requests · GitHub
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I’m also very frustrated that Bluetooth speakers are not available in HA. It’s the most widely developed wireless streaming environment in the world, and is just ignored.
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I am currently using a bluetooth speaker to play audio from Music Assistant. It was a little difficult to set up (I am a novice at best), but it works. I had to connect the speaker to the Raspberry Pi 5 using web terminal bluetoothctl. Then I set it up in VLC add on, plays on VLC telnet.
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This sounds interesting.
Is it responsive enough to be used for text-to-speech?
Another option.
Home assistant in docker on a debian host.
Bluetooth speaker connected to the host (bluetoothctl).
I use bluealsa to play notifications on these speaker from a script:
#!/bin/sh
amixer -D bluealsa sset 'EE4295 - A2DP' 100%
aplay -D speaker-1 /home/user/soundfiles/3.wav &
exit 0
And then from docker I excecute this script on the host via ssh als with a script:
#!/bin/sh
ssh -F /config/.ssh/config intelnuc "/home/user/bin/play-sound.sh"
exit 0
All these solutions are excellent.
… but… I would love to know the demographics of HA users as far as willingness to deploy some complex solutions (think ‘what is that thingy on the screen?’ vs ‘i hand coded Arch for fun this morning.’)
My conjecture is that there are way more in the left tail of the distribution, then on the right.
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I believe that the majority lie somewhere in between those two points. They understand technical concepts, but may not be hardcore coders.
Just got a JAM Classic 2.0 Bluetooth speaker to work with a Raspberry (running the HA operating system). No Bluetooth dongle needed, runs with Pi4 internal bluetooth.
Audio Notifications with TTS work like a charm now.
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I’m glad that guide exists, however the fact that it has 41+ steps to get it working, and even then only with specifically ProxMox, is a clear sign that this process needs to be made simpler for mere mortals.
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No ProxMox in my setup, it runs on a Pi with the HA operating system. No Bluetooth dongle needed, runs with Pi4 internal bluetooth.
Took 5 minutes to get it running… I just added that info to original post.