Home Assistant

[jasonwilliams 36]

Hello,

 

I see there is a integration to control Emby from HA and I'm wondering if anybody would consider writing a plugin to control HA from Emby.  

[Luke 40077]

Hi there, to do what exactly?

[jasonwilliams 36]

To do pretty much exactly what Chef's Vera plugin does.   Example would be trigger a script in HA when you press Play in Emby to turn off the lights, close the blinds, etc...

[BillOatman 575]

I assume you mean google home assistant?

Does it allow programs to send it non verbal commands?  I have the amazon echo devices, and they don't.

I have seen people have apps that when sent commands, speaks the command that the echo or HA   Not sure how else you would do this.

 

Probably better off having the Emby plugin control the lights, blinds, etc directly. Some lights have plugins already that do that.

Edited June 19, 2019 by BillOatman

[jasonwilliams 36]

Looks like it should be possible through the API:

 

https://developers.home-assistant.io/docs/en/external_api_rest.html

 

My lights and blinds are Z-Wave, so they can only be controller through a Z-Wave Compatible controller (like Vera or SmartThings).  I'm migrating from Vera because of long term stability issues with the platform.  There also seems to be a vibrant developer community for HA and its completely open.

[BillOatman 575]

Took a quick look at that api and it should be possible for someone with the equipment.

[jasonwilliams 36]

I might take a stab at this, although I'm rusty.  Perhaps @@chef might be interested in some collaboration since he already has this working for Vera?

[BillOatman 575]

That code would make an excellent jumping off point I would think.

[jasonwilliams 36]

I'll post over in the HA community forum and gauge the interest, althought I might just build it for myself

 

I'm rusty, so please forgive terminology, but I have a question:

 

Is the Emby api two-way?  Can it notify when an action occurs (like play, pause) through an exposed requester?

Edited June 21, 2019 by jasonwilliams

[BillOatman 575]

Yes. For an example of a Hue plugin that taps into those events, look here.

https://github.com/biofects/emby.plugin.HueControl

[harrv 90]

I assume you mean google home assistant?

 

You probably know this already now, since your conversation continued, but Google Home and Home Assistant are two different things. Home Assistant is an opensource project that helps integrate and control a lot of things/devices in the home and isn't directly related to Google Home.

[jaaem 4]

If you do mean homeassistant (https://www.home-assistant.io/), then there is no need for a new plugin. As you stated, Emby is already supported. https://www.home-assistant.io/components/emby/

 

If you want to "control HA from Emby", all you need to do is create an automation to trigger off a state change. I did a quick test and it works fine.

Setup Emby in Homeassistant.

 

Make a new automation in the homeassistant gui: Configuration->Automations

Trigger Type: State

entity: media_player.emby_androidtv_livingroom_firetv (or whatever the your emby player is called)

from: paused

to: playing

 

You may need to add another trigger from standby to playing.

 

 

Trigger

Action Type: Call Service

Service: light.turn_off

data:

{

  "entity_id": "light.living_room"

}

 

repeat this for anything else you want to turn off.

Edited June 26, 2019 by jaaem

[jasonwilliams 36]

Thanks Jaaem!  I just tried and it works perfectly.  HA is really awesome, and so is Emby!

[majorsl 20]

Funny, I was just looking to do this today with my new HA build and here is this thread.  Thanks!  Is there a list of state changes somewhere?  Obviously above, "playing", "paused"....

[jasonwilliams 36]

Yup. It uses the media_player service, so you can create automations in the GUI based on those events.  For example, I have an automation to turn off the lights when the media player state changes from "idle" to "playing".   Here's a screenshot: