Came across it while looking into Sendspin. Has anyone set it up? How is it? Use it? Better than Jellyfin?
E: Thanks everyone for the replies, it was informative!
Lacking in intuitive interface and pretty buggy at times, I suspect most that use it enjoy the flexibility it introduces to work with multiple data sources, multiple playback devices, and DSP features to normalize audio.
I use it and find it really good. I have it running in a Docker container on my media server rather than a HomeAssistant add-on.
The interface is a bit clunky, but that’s my only real complaint. There are some third party apps available that ease the pain of this a bit - I use Ensemble on Android.
The main strength is the ease with which you can add multiple different sources and have them work side by side. I do get some duplication, but that’s usually because the Spotify version of an album is the deluxe or something along those lines.
HomeAssistant integration is great. You can easily automate playing tracks/albums/playlists - I have a wireless button under the kitchen table that triggers my choice of playlist on a double press and my wife’s on a single press.
Sendspin is fantastic - it’s practically effortless to have multiple players with different protocols playing in sync. Really looking forward to this protocol developing more, since the unfinished version is so good!
Do you know what the resource usage is like? I’m wondering whether to do docker on my big machine or an add-on on my Home Assistant Yellow (Pi 4).
Is the main use case here to stream from your own library like a plex for music? Or something else?
I’m not sure what you mean by connect different sources, I generally just use Spotify so maybe I’m not the ideal user here. I’d definitely see value in transitioning off of Spotify but that would require me to keep my own library of music and while I’m sure a sonar/radar pipeline exists for this I’d find it limiting for finding new music. Spotify’s discover weekly and playlists of stuff I’ve never heard before keep me hooked.
You can stream from your own library or whatever streaming service you like all through one system and app. I have local files, Spotify, Bandcamp, and Qobuz accounts as sources and they’re all treated as equal citizens. Personally I much prefer “owning” the music, but I take your point about discovery.
For me the win is being able to delete my Google speakers for voice control. Paired with Home Assistant Voice device it can pretty much replace Google. I’ll just use the Google speakers via bluetooth as music players.
UI is a bit clunky as mentioned, but I’m happy to live with that for now due to ^^^.
I’ll just use the Google speakers via bluetooth as music players.
Is that actually possible? I gifted mine to others after I got a couple of Home Assistant Voice spks. I’m planning to use the aux of the HA Voice to play through larger speakers like JBL Charge.
Yep. I’m doing it currently with my work laptop. I have two G speakers set up as a stereo pair and connected to laptop by BT.
It is useable but the user interface is clunky and the developers have a mindset that settings need to be hidden from the users which is kinda weird for the target group that are home automation tweakers. A lot of the UI/UX is designed from a software developers perspective, not from the eyes of a user. It would be nice to have different third party web interfaces to choose from.
I use it daily, but as a replacement for smart device integrations. For example, my alarm plays music while the lights come on to prevent me from going back to sleep. I used to do that with Google Home, now I do it with Music Assistant.
I have an IKEA BILRESA which is basically an iPod click wheel in a little portable Zigbee/thread device. I really wanted to have this control my music, and it will be through Music Assistant and Home Assistant that I achieve this.
I’m still waiting on the Alexa devices integration improving, or picking up some real speakers, both of which are in the works. Then I will hook that up with a local LLM voice assistant in every room (including the bathroom; shower music!)
Achieving this without Music Assistant would be a pain. If things all go right I won’t really use the clunky interface much anyway
Are you planning to use Alexa speakers with their stock firmware for you LLM voice assistant?
First I’ll use them for music assistant. If I end up making some voice satellites, I’ll have to see what the audio quality is like before ditching the Alexa speakers.
I don’t believe anybody has found a way to use non-stock firmware. I’d love to jailbreak them if I could
I see. I ditched my Google Home speakers by replacing them with Home Assistant Voice speakers. They’re not good for music but the mics and speaker are pretty good for voice. Pretty easy to setup fully-offline agent with a local LLM with those.
Wrks pretty nicely for me, installed on my HAOS VM via HACS. Initially, was to power multiple devices in the home while having Spotify connect (Volumio got ruled out for some other reason.) Sonos, PiCorePlayer, and some AndroidTV based things as players.
Works well enough, though the browsing could be better / faster. I prefer the JF UI for music.