Emby Home / Google Home

[FrogMaster 27]

Hey Everyone, 

I saw some documentation regarding configuring Emby to integrate with Google Home. 
I have both Google Home and Alexa. When I was reviewing the Google Home documentation, it is indicated that Emby Home must be configured in the Google Home settings. 

I followed the instructions listed here: https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/7126338?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&hl=en
When I navigate to the "Explore" settings within the Google Home app then search for "Emby Home" there is no presented Emby Home option for me to link to my Google Home.
I've tried searching but have not found any answers regarding Emby Home missing from the Explore section. During my searches through Google and the Emby Community forums I saw some mentions that this may be due to the language being used. I'm situated in Canada and the Emby / Google Home applications are both configured to function in English. I'm assuming English would be the default for Emby, unless I'm mistaken? 

Additionally when I request to speak to Emby Home VIA Google directly, it tells me this service isn't available? Is this functionality not enabled in Canada? If not... is there a reason that it's not functional within my country? Please let me know what I need to do to make use of this feature with my lifetime license. 

Edited November 21, 2021 by FrogMaster

[Lapsis 1]

I'm also having issues with this recently. I found the emby home in the explore area of the Google home last week, installed it and due to some changes with my server I had to unlink my emby account. 

When I ask Google to talk to emby I just get the emby home is no longer available error and I cannot find emby home using explore either. I'm in Austria and all my settings are set to English as well. 

Seems like emby home has vanished from the Google ecosystem. 

[FrogMaster 27]

8 minutes ago, Lapsis said:

I'm also having issues with this recently. I found the emby home in the explore area of the Google home last week, installed it and due to some changes with my server I had to unlink my emby account. 

When I ask Google to talk to emby I just get the emby home is no longer available error and I cannot find emby home using explore either. I'm in Austria and all my settings are set to English as well. 

Seems like emby home has vanished from the Google ecosystem. 

I would have to agree with you that it seems the Emby Home service has vanished from the Google environment. I attempted to adjust my location settings to the United States to see if it would have any affect / changes on the features availability but alas it did not. 

At this point I think it's just a matter of waiting until one of the developers is able to shed some light on the situation. 

[ebr 16178]

Hi.  We're working on getting this restored.  Thanks.

[Lapsis 1]

2 minutes ago, ebr said:

Hi.  We're working on getting this restored.  Thanks.

Thanks! 

[FrogMaster 27]

17 hours ago, ebr said:

Hi.  We're working on getting this restored.  Thanks.

Thank you for the quick response! I look forward to when I will be able to link Emby with my Google Home. 
I've been using the Alexa skill and so far it's been really nice to have the convenience of using my voice. 

Edited November 22, 2021 by FrogMaster

[Luke 42078]

It's back up now so you should be able to find it again. Thanks.

[NEatonJr 0]

Seems to not be back up... unless it is something specific to my situation. 

• I previously had Emby Premiere and had connected Emby and Google Home so I could control Emby from a Google Home Mini in the living room. At the time, I had issues with not being able to get it to properly set the preferred playback device so I cancelled the Premiere subscription. 
• Recently, I decided to give it another try given that Google Play Music is gone and it's so painful to play all the music we had uploaded to that and transferred over to Youtube Music. 
• When I follow the instructions from link above, I get to a view like OP described where I can find Emby Home under Assistant Settings | Explore in the Google Home app but there is nothing that allows me to actually link Emby and Google. 

Thoughts?

Screenshot (Dec 1, 2021 2:01:43 PM)

[Carlo 4561]

Hi, It looks like you found and added it.

Have you tried it at this point?

Give it a try with something like "Talk to MB Home".

It will either work or complain "I am unable to access your Emby account. Please complete the account linking process gain."
If it gives you that error pick back up here:
https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001161655-google-home#GoogleHomeAccountLinking

You should be good to go at that point and just have to learn how to talk to home.

Hope that helped.

[Lapsis 1]

On 01/12/2021 at 06:04, Luke said:

It's back up now so you should be able to find it again. Thanks.

Just wanted to check in and confirm that it works fine for me. Thanks for the quick fix. 

[FrogMaster 27]

On 30/11/2021 at 21:04, Luke said:

It's back up now so you should be able to find it again. Thanks.

I can also confirm that it's now available again. Thank you.

[FrogMaster 27]

15 hours ago, NEatonJr said:

Seems to not be back up... unless it is something specific to my situation. 

• I previously had Emby Premiere and had connected Emby and Google Home so I could control Emby from a Google Home Mini in the living room. At the time, I had issues with not being able to get it to properly set the preferred playback device so I cancelled the Premiere subscription. 
• Recently, I decided to give it another try given that Google Play Music is gone and it's so painful to play all the music we had uploaded to that and transferred over to Youtube Music. 
• When I follow the instructions from link above, I get to a view like OP described where I can find Emby Home under Assistant Settings | Explore in the Google Home app but there is nothing that allows me to actually link Emby and Google. 

Thoughts?

Screenshot (Dec 1, 2021 2:01:43 PM) 258.07 kB · 3 downloads

I ran into this. I just directly said "Speak to MB Home" to my google home. Then it prompted me to link my account, perhaps try this? 
As you're correct there is no "LINK" Button like as is displayed in the screenshot provided above. 

Edited December 2, 2021 by FrogMaster

[timter51 6]

I thought I had got this set up and ready to go, but when I talk to my Google Home Nest Home with Emby commands,  I get the "Emby Home isn't responding right now" message. When I go into my Emby Connect account online, the server is listed there and I can access it fine. I've checked in my server's settings and it's set to allow external connections, I've checked on my router and UPnP is enabled and has correctly set up the rules for ports 8096 and 8920 to the correct internal IP of my server. To be sure, I've also manually set up firewall rules.  I've checked an online port scanner which tells my port 8096 on my external IP is open. So as far as I can tell, everything is set up fine and Emby Connect can access my server remotely.

Any ideas appreciated...

Edited December 2, 2021 by timter51

[FrogMaster 27]

16 minutes ago, timter51 said:

I thought I had got this set up and ready to go, but when I talk to my Google Home Nest Home with Emby commands,  Emby Home tells me it can't connect to my server. When I go into my Emby Connect account online, the server is listed there and I can access it fine. I've checked in my server's settings and it's set to allow external connections, I've checked on my router and UPnP is enabled and has correctly set up the rules for ports 8096 and 8920 to the correct internal IP of my server. To be sure, I've also manually set up firewall rules.  I've checked an online port scanner which tells my port 8096 on my external IP is open. So as far as I can tell, everything is set up fine and Emby Connect can access my server remotely.

Any ideas appreciated...

Your question might get better exposure in a new thread. 
You can try re-adding the account in Emby Connect. Or Unlinking and re-linking you Emby Account to your Google Home/Nest. When you open the Emby Home service in the Google Home > Explore section there is a very tiny RESET button down the bottom you can click to reset the app. 

[timter51 6]

8 hours ago, FrogMaster said:

Your question might get better exposure in a new thread. 
You can try re-adding the account in Emby Connect. Or Unlinking and re-linking you Emby Account to your Google Home/Nest. When you open the Emby Home service in the Google Home > Explore section there is a very tiny RESET button down the bottom you can click to reset the app. 

I gather from some researching through old threads that I might need to set up SSL as Google Home will only connect properly to Emby Home that way. Easiest option seems to be something like Duck DNS with Let's Encrypt.... planning to have a play around early next week.

So for anyone else struggling with this, seemingly having it set up correctly but getting the "Emby Home isn't responding right now", this is the post that mentions the SSL issue.

Edited December 2, 2021 by timter51

[FrogMaster 27]

31 minutes ago, timter51 said:

I gather from some researching through old threads that I might need to set up SSL as Google Home will only connect properly to Emby Home that way. Easiest option seems to be something like Duck DNS with Let's Encrypt.... planning to have a play around early next week.

So for anyone else struggling with this, seemingly having it set up correctly but getting the "Emby Home isn't responding right now", this is the post that mentions the SSL issue.

I would suggest looking into NGINX Proxy Manager. It will make your life easier when it comes to getting an SSL certificate / managing it. 
Comes with additional benefits such as not needing to enter the port in the domain/url that you use. 

Edited December 2, 2021 by FrogMaster

[NEatonJr 0]

Thanks. The link from cayars helped. Through that I could see the actual Emby account link in my Google account. I unlinked it and tried again. This time, the page I landed in from Assistant Settings | Explore looked the same but based on suggestion from FrogMaster I tried "talk emby home" again and this time it started a dialog to actually link my Google and Emby Connect accounts. I guess it was long enough ago the last time I did that it was before the linking was done with a chat bot. 

I have not had time to test thoroughly but have been able to set the default player, tell MB home to play a song, then a movie, stop the movie, etc. 

What I have not been able to do is set my phone as the default player. Got an error about server having to have HTTPS, etc. so I guess my next step will be to try the suggestions on NGINX, etc.

Thanks again!

[FrogMaster 27]

23 minutes ago, NEatonJr said:

Thanks. The link from cayars helped. Through that I could see the actual Emby account link in my Google account. I unlinked it and tried again. This time, the page I landed in from Assistant Settings | Explore looked the same but based on suggestion from FrogMaster I tried "talk emby home" again and this time it started a dialog to actually link my Google and Emby Connect accounts. I guess it was long enough ago the last time I did that it was before the linking was done with a chat bot. 

I have not had time to test thoroughly but have been able to set the default player, tell MB home to play a song, then a movie, stop the movie, etc. 

What I have not been able to do is set my phone as the default player. Got an error about server having to have HTTPS, etc. so I guess my next step will be to try the suggestions on NGINX, etc.

Thanks again!

Take a look at this: https://nginxproxymanager.com
It's a GUI designed to make managing NGINX a lot easier. It also runs in a docker container, so it should be pretty quick to setup. 

[Carlo 4561]

On 12/2/2021 at 8:24 AM, timter51 said:

 When I go into my Emby Connect account online, the server is listed there and I can access it fine. I've checked in my server's settings and it's set to allow external connections, I've checked on my router and UPnP is enabled and has correctly set up the rules for ports 8096 and 8920 to the correct internal IP of my server. To be sure, I've also manually set up firewall rules.  I've checked an online port scanner which tells my port 8096 on my external IP is open. So as far as I can tell, everything is set up fine and Emby Connect can access my server remotely.

If I remember this correctly I think it will work using non secured ports but for some features you must have secured ports setup using only port 443.
This would be needed in order to have Emby playback media directly on the device itself.

Now that this is back in the store working again, I would like to try and expand the KB area on this and clarify (after testing) things like this.

[FrogMaster 27]

On 03/12/2021 at 07:57, cayars said:

If I remember this correctly I think it will work using non secured ports but for some features you must have secured ports setup using only port 443.
This would be needed in order to have Emby playback media directly on the device itself.

Now that this is back in the store working again, I would like to try and expand the KB area on this and clarify (after testing) things like this.

I will mention that the screenshots in the Knowledgebase at the current point in time are certainly out of date and longer 100% accurate. Which I know caused me some confusion originally. 

[timter51 6]

5 hours ago, FrogMaster said:

I will mention that the screenshots in the Knowledgebase at the current point in time are certainly out of date and longer 100% accurate. Which I know caused me some confusion originally. 

I paid for Premium based solely on the Google Home KB article as my main use for Emby was to not have to use Youtube Music.... then finding that Emby Home had been removed from Google Home wasn't a great start! Now it's back, I'm stumbling my way through setup, piecing together bits from old threads and help in here. I hope I am about to clear the final hurdle with this SSL issue. The KB article is about 50% of the setup and even what's there isn't very accurate like you say, and defo needs a big overhaul. There were loads and loads of Google Home deals over Black Friday, I imagine a number of people will be looking towards Emby over the coming months, the team should be sure to capitalise on that.

Edited December 5, 2021 by timter51

[Carlo 4561]

15 hours ago, FrogMaster said:

I will mention that the screenshots in the Knowledgebase at the current point in time are certainly out of date and longer 100% accurate. Which I know caused me some confusion originally. 

I just followed them the other day. Both this and Alexa are always going to be problematic for two reasons.  It's slightly different depending on the your location and also the type of device being used and/or how many devices or rooms setup.  Both Google and Amazon are constantly changing things as well which doesn't help.

I will take another look at how we may be able to explain the steps needed while showing the "current example" so if it doesn't match you at least know what to look for.

[Carlo 4561]

9 hours ago, timter51 said:

I paid for Premium based solely on the Google Home KB article as my main use for Emby was to not have to use Youtube Music.... then finding that Emby Home had been removed from Google Home wasn't a great start! Now it's back, I'm stumbling my way through setup, piecing together bits from old threads and help in here. I hope I am about to clear the final hurdle with this SSL issue. The KB article is about 50% of the setup and even what's there isn't very accurate like you say, and defo needs a big overhaul. There were loads and loads of Google Home deals over Black Friday, I imagine a number of people will be looking towards Emby over the coming months, the team should be sure to capitalise on that.

The thing is our KB article really only has a couple steps which I will reorder.  First is to have an Emby Connect setup and working for your account on your Emby Server.   Besides having EC setup you're actually following Google's instructions in the link which points here: https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/7126338?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&hl=en

That really is the heart and sole of the setup.  The rest of the KB article simply gives you commands to get you started and how to link the EC on first use or error.
So that can be made a bit more clear but the real issue is likely the actual google info.  But it too is actually pretty accurate in general.  It's almost dead on for a Google phone for instance but you likely have to search to find things on a Samsung phone because the manufacture likes to change the UI to make it their own.  That is likely the biggest issue and probably not a lot we can do about that as phone UI is out of our control.

I most certainly will take a another shot at making the KB article more clear.   I'll also see if I can get an Android emulation running on my PC which I can use to take screen shots or maybe create a short video showing the setup being done.  That would probably be the best method as seeing it done will likely make it easier to understand the Google Documentation as well.

[timter51 6]

I'm so very close to getting this working, but keep falling down at the final hurdle with the "Emby Home isn't responding right now" when attmepting to use it through Google Home.

I have set up Nginx Proxy Manager (running in Docker on the same Pi as my Emby server), have SSL up and running (Let's Encrypt through NPM), and have a duckdns address. Emby Connect is connecting fine to my server over SSL (tested using https://app.emby.media). I can access my server locally and externally over https using my local IP, external IP or my duckdns address. Everything seems to working fine, right up until trying to use Google Home... if I say "talk to Emby Home" I get the "Hi, Emby Home here" (or similar) response, but then any request is met with the "not responding right now" error. At a complete loss now.

Can someone clarify how I should have my IP forwarding and ports set up, this is what I currently have:

Emby and NPM (in Docker) running on a Raspberry Pi (dietpi):

• DuckDNS: linked to my external IP
• Router: 443 and 80 (and 81 for NPM admin) forwarding to my Pi internal IP (I have not forwarded 8096 or 8920, I don't believe I need to when using NPM?)
• NPM: Listening on 443, 80 and 81 / SSL created for my duckdns address / Proxy set up for duckdns address to forward to https://192.168.0.22:8920 (my internal Emby https port)
• Emby: Local ports set as 8096 and 8920 / External ports set as 8096 and 443 / External address as my duckdns address / allow external connections on

I feel like the Emby external https port set as 443 doesn't make sense, as that is what Emby is listening on. But I've gone round in so many circles and tied myself in knots, and external connections seem to be working fine apart from Google Home, I don't know what's going on anymore.

Any help appreciated @cayars @FrogMaster !!

 

[Carlo 4561]

I would get rid of NPM and uninstall docker.  Make sure Emby is running on the host itself and not in docker.  The Pi barely has enough muscle to run Emby Server and you don't want it doing other things (at least until you have a working baseline).

I'm really not sure why you would need a reverse proxy on the Pi anyway as hopefully Emby is the only thing running there so you don't have a reason to reroute ports (main reason to use NPM). It's likely you didn't set up NPM for web socket or the stack needs tuning for something like Google Home or Alexa.  But since you don't need this just remove it and docker to get those resources back as well as greatly simplify the setup so Home can talk directly to Emby with no middle man involved.