Volume control using a Media Player in Home Assistant

Tinkering
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@GregD - if you have a moment, I could use a bit of help.

I have a Roon Ready Linn device that has been a standalone Roon zone. I’ve now put an Eversolo streamer in front of it and the streamer is doing volume passthrough. The Eversolo device is now the Roon zone.

The Linn device is set up in Home Assistant using the OpenHome integration.

You may recall I have custom volume knobs - I can easily modify those automations to control the Linn device directly since it shows up as a Media Player.

In Roon, I go to the Eversolo’s zone’s settings and look at the Volume Control options. I addition to Device Volume and Fixed Volume, I see a list of “Home Assistant: …” entries. That list seems to be just the Roon zones. No “Media Player” devices in Home Assistant that are not already known to Roon show up. Should they?

Is there anyway for me to get my Eversolo-based zone to use the Linn device in Home Assistant for volume control? If not, I’ll just set it to fixed.

It’s possible I’m just confused about how this is supposed to work.

Thanks!

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It’s easier than you think.

Forget the Home Assistant volume options in Roon. They are for where Roon itself can’t control the volume, but home assistant can.

For a Roon ready device you should be able to choose “device volume”.

Check the volume control works in roon.

If so the media player volume control for that zone should just work in home assistant without doing anything.

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My explanation was confusing. I of course understand how to use a Roon Ready device with device volume. That’s what I used to do with this zone. I’m trying to do something more complex now.

The setup for this zone is now:

[Eversolo T8]   --- USB ---> [Linn Selekt DSM]
 (streamer)                (DAC / Integrated Amp)

Roon knows about the Eversolo. Roon does not know about the Linn. I want Roon to control volume on the Linn.

Home Assistant knows about the Linn. It’s a Media Player via the OpenHome integration.

I hoped that it would show up in the Volume Control list. It doesn’t. The only devices that show up in that list are the devices configured in Roon. I have other Media Players configured in Home Assistant that also don’t show up.

Should these Media Players show up? Is this supposed to be a list of all of the Media Players configured in Home Assistant? If so, I can easily get this working the way I want.

I’m just not sure if this is a bug in the integration or if I’m trying to do something that isn’t supported.

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So roon can only send HA volume change requests for media players that Roon already knows about.

But when you receive the request in HA you can do what you like with it.

So you need to select the Home Assistant: Zone volume control option in roon for the EverSolo zone.

Then when you receive the automation events for the Eversolo zone in HA, you can change the Linn volume.

Note I only currently support + / - / mute.

There is an example automation in the HA Roon documentation.

Does that make sense?

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Absolutely! It’s not how I guessed it would work but I understand it now and can work with it.

Thank you!

Update: I have this working now. I should have looked at the integration documentation - I’ve been using this for years yet it didn’t occur to me to look there. Thanks again for maintaining and supporting this integration. It’s outstanding.

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