How to build and use SpeakerGroups

General
1

I recently got the new Remote 3 and have encountered a problem that I need your help with.

I have a media setup in which I operate both a stereo amplifier (with Airplay) and a Yamaha AVR (with Airplay). I do this so that I can still run the subwoofer via the Yamaha AVR when operating in pure stereo mode via the stereo amplifier.

I play music via Apple Music on a MacBook.

I would now like to do the following two things and don’t know how:

I would like to control the volume of both devices (AVR & amp) simultaneously. And I would like to integrate the media player (which consists of both devices) as an entity on the Remote 3 screen so that I can see album art, etc.

I have already tried the following:

Using MusicCast integration, I can easily access the Yamaha media player entity and display it nicely on the screen (with cover art and media controls). However, I can only use the slider to change the volume for the subwoofer.

I use HomeAssistant and have created a SpeakerGroup. This works in HomeAssistant, but does not display metadata such as cover art, etc. or media controls on the remote.

I have created a macro on the Remote 3 that is supposed to control the volume of both devices in parallel and then assigned these macros to the corresponding buttons. However, this does not work reliably.

Do you have any ideas what I can do here?

2

You probably have to wait until speaker groups are officially supported: Support for speaker groups · Issue #71 · unfoldedcircle/feature-and-bug-tracker · GitHub

1 Like
3

I have found a solution to implement this with HomeAssistant:

media_player:
- platform: universal
  name: Lautsprechergruppe (Wohnzimmer)
  unique_id: lautsprechergruppe_wohnzimmer
  children:
    - media_player.wohnzimmer
    - media_player.hegel_h390
  commands:
    turn_off:
      action: media_player.turn_off
      data:
        entity_id: 
          - media_player.wohnzimmer
    turn_on:
      action: media_player.turn_on
      data:
        entity_id: 
          - media_player.wohnzimmer
    volume_up:
      action: media_player.volume_set
      data:
        volume_level: "{{states.media_player.hegel_h390.attributes.volume_level + 0.01}}"
      target:
        device_id:
          - cf7c35b47ff043d1235935f325a2cc4a
          - d29d51c10faa27e1d57199e4c426c4b6
    volume_down:
      action: media_player.volume_set
      data:
        volume_level: "{{states.media_player.hegel_h390.attributes.volume_level - 0.01}}"
      target:
        device_id:
          - cf7c35b47ff043d1235935f325a2cc4a
          - d29d51c10faa27e1d57199e4c426c4b6
    volume_set:
      action: media_player.volume_set
      target:
        entity_id: 
          - media_player.wohnzimmer
          - media_player.hegel_h390
      data:
        volume_level: "{{ volume_level }}"
  attributes:
    is_volume_muted: media_player.wohnzimmer|is_volume_muted
    state_template: media_player.wohnzimmer|state
    volume_level: media_player.hegel_h390|volume_level
    media_content_type: states.media_player.wohnzimmer|media_content_type
    media_duration: states.media_player.wohnzimmer|media_duration
    media_position: states.media_player.wohnzimmer|media_position
    media_position_updated_at: states.media_player.wohnzimmer|media_position_updated_at
    source: states.media_player.wohnzimmer|source
    sound_mode: states.media_player.wohnzimmer|sound_mode
    entity_picture: "{{states.media_player.wohnzimmer.attributes.entity_picture}}"
    media_title: "{{states.media_player.wohnzimmer.attributes.media_title}}"
    media_album_name: "{{states.media_player.wohnzimmer.attributes.media_album_name}}"
    media_artist: "{{states.media_player.wohnzimmer.attributes.media_artist}}"
  device_class: receiver

This media player can then be transferred to the WebConfigurator. The only thing missing here is the progress bar. But it works. I can also use it to control the volume of both devices together.