Multi Room Audio Dashboards

[flint rover]

Using NavBar I've got video control working well enough in each room. Now I want to integrate music options. I have a HTD MCA-66. There are 6 zones. Each Zone can have one of 6 sources (I'm using 5, but only 2 are for music). I'd like a user to be able to control media from those 2 sources. Pick a source, and it plays in the appropriate room. The problme I'm facing is that the MCA-66 doesn't seem to show as a target entity. For example- If I want to do text to speech on the speakers in all the zones, I have to go through each speaker set which shows as a very basic media player, turn it on, set the source to the PiCore Player Source, then play the audio. Each zone doesn't show as a media player with media, so while I can select a source via script or manually, there's multiple steps that need to happen-

1. Turn on Zone
2. Switch to Correct Source for that Zone
3. On Source Media Player, browse media

How can I integrate all 3 steps into an interface that the family can easily use? I've looked a couple of media player cards from HACS but they don't seem to like having the Source Media Player and the Zone Media Player working together.

Any suggestions on where I can look?

[flint rover]

I'm really confused. I've set up Music Assistant, and a Squeezebox server, and I already had a Plex Server. MA looks like a great option, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to get an interface that allows a user to pick the media service they want to listen to. I've added Apple Music to MA, I've added Players to MA. If I create a card for that player it doesn't show Apple Music in the Browse Media. I'm probalby missing some simple crucial step.

[modern goblet]

Music Assistant makes a unified library, so it wouldn’t show up as Apple Music.
If you want a card for your dashboard that allows searching music assistant there are a few options:

• Mediocre Media Player Cards (by myself)
• Music Assistant Search Card
• Yet Another Media Player
  Yet Another is probably the most all in one solution

[flint rover]

I think the universal media player will do what I want on the backend and then I can find a card that will work. I’d looked at YAMP but I’ll check the others too.

[flint rover]

Hmmm...Not sure I'm liking the unified library, but I think universal media player is the right track. If I'm looking at it correctly, it seems to allow me to create a type of "virtual" media player that mixes other media players together which I think might get me what I need....need to keep digging

[modern goblet]

I’m using universal media player myself and it’s really nice. It doesn’t support speaker grouping so you still need to do that using the speakers own entities. That’s actually why I created my card initially: to be able to use universal media player for the meta data and other entities for grouping.

[flint rover]

@modern goblet Okay, I'm about ready to give up on Universal Media Player if your Mediocre Media Player Cards can do what I want (which I think maybe it can). It looks like I can tie the volume to a different entity than what's playing the media (Exactly what I need!) Can I have the power button run a script? I know I can add a custom button but that's a bit akward to have to hit two power buttons (one for the speaker media player, and one for the Music Assitant media player) as a user. .

[modern goblet]

Look at my example here. Volume level is handled by universal media player.

https://github.com/antontanderup/mediocre-hass-media-player-cards/blob/main/docs/README_UMP.md

[flint rover]

Thank you! I was banging my head against the wall trying to work with AI to get UMP working. I finally had something mostly working (in spite of AI not because of it) and the missing piece was the active_child_template! I'm so close now to a usable system.

[flint rover]

Okay. Super close now. So far, Mediocre is the only way I've found a user can search MA from within HA so I'd love to use it. The one function I'm not seeing though (using Maxi- Panel View) is the ability to switch the source from the options defined in the UMP. Here's what I'm talking about in Mini Media Player and YAMP.

Okay, I see I can search with YAMP too but only if I select a different media player than the one created with UMP since the UMP player isn't directly connected to MA. Mediocre though allows me to specifiy the MA media player to use for searching.

After a little more fiddling I see better what it's doing. So, now the question, can I do something like this?
ma_entity_id: {% if is_state('input_select.office_stream_source', 'Music Stream 1') %}
media_player.picore_house
{% else %}
media_player.ma_wiim_mini
{% endif %}

[flint rover]

I can still search MA with this, but it doesn't change either source when a selection is made - ma_entity_id: >
{% if is_state('input_select.kitchen_stream_source', 'Music Stream 1') %}
media_player.picore_house
{% else %}
media_player.ma_wiim_mini
{% endif %}

[modern goblet]

By source, do you mean media_player?
ma_entity_id does not support templates so what you’re trying to do will not work. That being said I don’t quite understand what you’re trying to do 😅

The card doesn’t have source selection like mini media player has. Its not something I use myself and no one has requested it so I never thought about it 🙂

[flint rover]

Sorry. Yes. I'll see if I can back up and explain it all. Part of it is I recently ditched a Savant set up and I'm trying to somewhat re-create the way that worked for the family. I have 2 media players (a PiCore Player and a WiiM Mini) running through an HTD MCA-66 (6 Zone whole house audio amp). Each media player was created through Music Assistant's Player Providers. The PiCore Player with slimproto and the WiiM with DLNA. In each zone/room I want the user to be able to use either media player. I created a Universal Media Player that allows them to select either "source" (PiCore = Music Stream 1, WiiM = Music Stream 2) and play music. They can even switch which source is playing in that room. With this setup, two different streams can be in 2 different rooms. With Mediocre I can use the More Info screen to change sources (although accesing it from the main panel would be great), but the search can only be tied to one entity. This means that if I have selected the other source(Music Stream 1 or 2) and search and click on a selection it plays on the wrong one. Here's a screen shot of my the dashboard flow I'm using. I hope it makes it clearer. I might be taking the wrong approach and I'm open to other options.

I'm thinkin I may have to just create two Universal Media Players. I might have to split Stream 1 and 2 apart to different controls. The challenge then is in each room creating the logic so that it will correctly switch between the two. If a user starts playing something on one turn off the other in that room and vice versa. There's a bunch of other logic I'm thinking I may need to implement to Pause the music when the last user turns off the room so that the music doesn't continue playing when no one is listening.

Mediocre is the only card I've found that allows me to point to the MA entity instead of trying to use the currently attached entity. This makes it perfect for using with UMP.

[modern goblet]

UMP is indeed why you can specify a specific entity for music assistant.
Your setup is very custom to your situation. For source selection I would use custom buttons in mediocre.
If you want to template anything in the card I would probably wrap the card. I’m certainly not planning on making fields templatable.
I think you could do it with this custom card: https://github.com/iantrich/config-template-card

[flint rover]

Thanks, I'll give it a try. I tried wrapping in a different one but then the card wouldn't update when the music changed. It might be easier to just have a drop down that the user to select the source and it dynamically shows the correct card. That seems to work and be straightforward. Since everyone is working from a phone though, space is a premium so I'm trying to hide the selection once a selection has been made and use a custom button on mediocre to switch entities. The problem is the script I'm using to switch, doesn't seem to bubble up to the dashboard even though I can see the state of the input_select change in the States browser. I'll figure it out eventually. You've been a huge help, thank you!

Actually, it is working. The custom button isn't. This is my setting. I save it. Come back and it changes to "Toggle"

[modern goblet]

That red border indicates that there is something not valid about the form input. This will cause visual editor to not save.
Unfortunately I don’t think I implemented an error message display for the custom buttons so you will have to figure out what causes the red border to appear.
I’m on vacation so cannot really fix things right now. It should probably just save even though the form is not valid and just validate for helping indicators.

[flint rover]

Thanks.

[modern goblet]

Basically, you’re hitting a bug in the visual editor. What you’re doing looks fine.

[flint rover]

I found the issue knowing that the border meant there was an error. Can't launch the script directly. Needed to use the "toggle script" action and select the script entity. It works now