Using voice to tune to a live TV channel number

[FordGT90Concept 97]

I don't know if it is even possible but, I have elderly users that struggle with the remote/navigation.  Is there a voice command or a way to add a voice command to make Emby tune to a specific channel (e.g. 44.3)?

I tried "Emby" which it translates to "MB" channel 44.3 and it just does a YouTube search or whatever.  "Channel 44.3" doesn't work either presumably because it hasn't been set up in the Shield.

If Emby could grab: "MB channel 44.3" command, that'd be great.

[brothom 177]

14 hours ago, FordGT90Concept said:

If Emby could grab: "MB channel 44.3" command, that'd be great.

Features like these are always in a somewhat "grey" area. Enabling a device to process audio, even if only used for keywords like "OK Google", there should be a way that this audio isn't process without the user's permission or consent. This is why tech companies are always fighting out legal problems because of this. Remember that one time Google was "always" listening because it sent all audio directly to their server for processing? 

Emby will have to prevent something like that from happening and have the correct consents in place to avoid legal issues or at least so that the administrators of their server have a way to let their users know how this data is being used.

I'm also wondering how you would like to see this work with a TV? Not all (barely) TV's have any recording mechanisms at all and if they do support spoken terms, these are usually handled by the TV itself I believe.

Regardless of all that I think it's a nice feature to have for people with disabilities or impairments as well, as long it can also be disabled. Perhaps even disabled per user. 

[FordGT90Concept 97]

You already have to enable Emby in Google Assistant (which reminds me: Emby for Android and Emby for Android TV both appear as "Emby" in there so can't tell which app is which) which is the consent.  I checked one of my Shield TVs and it was enabled by default which kind of surprised me especially seeing how I couldn't make it actually do anything (not even open Emby).

Shield TV apparently doesn't even allow "OK Google" (I tried it) presumably because of battery drain on the remotes (the Shield itself has no mic).  If you want to say something, you have to push a mic button (on remote or on screen) to make it listen.  This is apparently common practice in the Android TV ecosystem because my 2021 Samsung TV also has a mic button on the remote and the microphone is embedded in the remote and not the TV itself.

Edited September 22, 2025 by FordGT90Concept

[brothom 177]

27 minutes ago, FordGT90Concept said:

You already have to enable Emby in Google Assistant (which reminds me: Emby for Android and Emby for Android TV both appear as "Emby" in there so can't tell which app is which) which is the consent.  I checked one of my Shield TVs and it was enabled by default which kind of surprised me especially seeing how I couldn't make it actually do anything (not even open Emby).

I suppose that's the Android / Google part taken care of? Does that also enable the Google Assistant (soon to be Gemini btw) to execute Emby functions like "Play X" or "Seek to time Y".

There's also plethora of devices that aren't supported by Google and this feature should also become available on those. I'm wondering how those would become supported in the long run.

Regardless, interesting feature but implementing it will be a pain I suppose.

[FordGT90Concept 97]

I had a whole season of The Simpsons recorded on Emby.  I said "Play The Simpsons" from the Emby for Android app and the Shield did nothing. I then said "MB play The Simpsons" and it pulled up YouTube search results.

I tried "play the transporter" from within Emby for Android. It did nothing.  I manually started playing The Transporter then tried saying "seek to 1 hour" which it translated to "621 hour" opening YouTube.  I then tried "seek 1 hour" which also opened YouTube.  Finally, I got it to understand "seek to 1 hour" and it did indeed jump The Transporter (it pauses the video when you hit the mic button) to 1 hour in.  So "seek to" is the only command so far in Emby for Android that has worked as intended.

Edited September 22, 2025 by FordGT90Concept

[brothom 177]

16 hours ago, FordGT90Concept said:

I had a whole season of The Simpsons recorded on Emby.  I said "Play The Simpsons" from the Emby for Android app and the Shield did nothing. I then said "MB play The Simpsons" and it pulled up YouTube search results.

I tried "play the transporter" from within Emby for Android. It did nothing.  I manually started playing The Transporter then tried saying "seek to 1 hour" which it translated to "621 hour" opening YouTube.  I then tried "seek 1 hour" which also opened YouTube.  Finally, I got it to understand "seek to 1 hour" and it did indeed jump The Transporter (it pauses the video when you hit the mic button) to 1 hour in.  So "seek to" is the only command so far in Emby for Android that has worked as intended.

Maybe the seek command was actually processed by the TV, instead of Emby itself though. That would make more sense as it was also processed by the remote right?

Regardless, it seems like there is a thin line between what Emby can support and what the devices themselves want to control, making this stuff pretty technical.

[Luke 42077]

So does it have a hard time understanding you anytime the word Emby is in the phrase?

[FordGT90Concept 97]

Yes, almost every time Shield understands "Emby" as "MB" but one time it translated it to "Ambi"

The only context where I saw it right was in the Google Play Store.

Edited September 26, 2025 by FordGT90Concept

[brothom 177]

35 minutes ago, FordGT90Concept said:

Yes, almost every time Shield understands "Emby" as "MB" but one time it translated it to "Ambi"

The only context where I saw it right was in the Google Play Store.

What about something like; "Play The Transporter via the Emby App". Perhaps adding "app" would help it distinguish.

Regardless, the input command is processed by the TV in this case and the word or phrase "Emby" probably doesn't exist within its dictionary. 

Unless the Emby devs have added support for voice commands (play X, find X, using internal API's) within that TV's OS / Shield it should only be able to perform basics tasks like "pause", "play", "seek", "stop".

@Luke has this support even been added to Emby? I couldn't get my Google Assistant and Samsung TV to search either, different device but maybe the same methods?

[FordGT90Concept 97]

I assume apps have to register keywords to Google Assistant for Google Assistant to do the thing so "MB" should be registered as an alias intended for Emby. But I have no idea how the Google Assistant API works.  It would be helpful for Emby users if it were properly set up.

From within Emby, it seemed to know that "play the Transporter" is supposed to be handed off to Emby but Emby didn't act upon it.  I expected Emby to search for "The Transporter."  If one result, "play" it. If more than one result, show the results.

Edited September 26, 2025 by FordGT90Concept