AK Google Cast plugin - Features Request

[alexbk66]

Add your desires here.

Currnetly in progress:

- Adding proper group support (so each device in the group rflects the group status)
- Adding Spotify controller - I tried Spotify API and it works, so just need time
- Playlists (Plex or others) consumption for local music?
- Album Casting (a continuation through each song in a folder)?
- Ability to set volume per TTS
- Great idea for Google/Nest Hub (with screen) - convert TTS text and audio into AVI to display on the hub screen

[benrjunk]

Need ability to quit currently running app. Very important and missing feature

[benrjunk]

Also, do not like how all chromecast devices say "Welcome to HomeSeer" when homeseer is started with with plugin. Can you make a way of disabling that? With HDMI-CEC, it turns on all my TVs!

[mterry63]

Edit the startup.txt file in the scripts directory, it is set to say this to all speaker clients by default. You can comment out that line.


Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[alexbk66]

Need ability to quit currently running app. Very important and missing feature

That's easy

[alexbk66]

Also, do not like how all chromecast devices say "Welcome to HomeSeer" when homeseer is started with with plugin. Can you make a way of disabling that? With HDMI-CEC, it turns on all my TVs!

Yeah, the list of speaker devices is defined in startup.txt.
If it's not sufficient - I can add some checks in the plugin.
But personally I don't have this issue...

[alexbk66]

Need ability to quit currently running app. Very important and missing feature

Ver. 1.0.0.6 in Beta section (until approved by HS to go in updater) - with Application Quit button.

BTW, for existing users if you don't want to recreate the Application device (to get Quit button) - it can be manually added:

[alexbk66]

First of all, what a great plugin this is! What is really cool that we can use Google Translator TTS engine to make it talk in any language. But there is a problem. If I use accented characters, like ä, in a phrase, those characters are encoded in a way that doesn't make sense to Google. For instance, if you want Homeseer say, "Motörhead", it sounds right with Homeseer voice, but not with Google translator voice. Could this be fixed?

I made the Google TTS text encoding configurable, so accented characters are supported (not encoded). But this change may produce unexpected results, i.e. '+' sign is not encoded anymore, so it's now ignored because it's treated as 'space'. URL encoding is a messy question, so I don't know which way is safer. We'll see..

Ver 1.0.0.7 now in Beta section (until approved by HST)

[alexbk66]

Is it possible to get localised voices? Like English (AU) for us Aussies, Alex?

Actually it's pretty easy, you can test yourself using Google Translate url, i.e.

https://translate.google.com/transla...guage&tl=en_uk
https://translate.google.com/transla...guage&tl=en_us
https://translate.google.com/transla...guage&tl=en_au

I'll see when and how I can modify the plugin to support that.
Also I'm planning to add official Google Cloud translate API as another option - it should be much better, but will require user registration.

[alexbk66]

Is it possible to get localised voices? Like English (AU) for us Aussies, Alex?

Ver 1.0.0.8 - Couldn't resist and implemented "en_us", "en_uk" and "en_au", and "CUSTOM" setting for any other languages, where you can enter the language id string directly.

[ppespepe]

Hello Alex,

I've been thinking about buying this plugin. I understand Chromecast will be included to HS4 but later next year and somehow, I don't think it would be as good as your plugin. This takes me to the following questions/requests if I may:

1.- Will you port this very good plugin to HS4
2.- If I buy it today, will I be entitled for such update?
3.- Saw this: https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2...-cast-preview/. will it be possible to do that? That would be AMAZING... even more with the projected new HTML interface? I would pre-buy such thing with a smile... just imagine the possibility to use my otherwise stupid Google Home Hubs as HS panels plus voice... and with HS voice announcements and everything... sooo cool!

Regards,

PP

[alexbk66]

I've been thinking about buying this plugin. I understand Chromecast will be included to HS4 but later next year and somehow, I don't think it would be as good as your plugin. This takes me to the following questions/requests if I may:

1.- Will you port this very good plugin to HS4
2.- If I buy it today, will I be entitled for such update?

Thank you ppespepe (PP). Sure I will port the plugin to HS4, I'm using all my plugins myself. And yes, I will offer free upgrade.
And with all my plugins I provide same day support, and try to implement new features requests.

Saw this: https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2...-cast-preview/. will it be possible to do that? That would be AMAZING... even more with the projected new HTML interface? I would pre-buy such thing with a smile... just imagine the possibility to use my otherwise stupid Google Home Hubs as HS panels plus voice... and with HS voice announcements and everything... sooo cool!

Yeah, I saw this and discussed Home Assistant Cast with my users before. It's based on HA Lovelace interface which HS doesn't have. Currently the only option is one way - from HS generate a HTML page and cast it to Chromecast, with TTS announcement.

But as you said, HS4 should be much better, and Google always improve their Chromecast API too. So I hope to be able to do something better.

[ppespepe]

Thank you Alex!

Just ordered the plugin and added the calendar one as well .

Now I have 4 (SmartDevice, Google Cast, Google Calendar and Shelly ).

Kind Regards!

Pepe.

[alexbk66]

Just ordered the plugin and added the calendar one as well .

Now I have 4 (SmartDevice, Google Cast, Google Calendar and Shelly ).

Thank you Pepe!

I'm still trying to finish the new version of SmartDevice, before I can start HS4 porting...

[Meapilot]

I have a combination of Google Chromecast and speakers.
When I use a speaker group that is set up in the GH App, the plug in recognizes the group as playing. But it does not update the individual speaker ( maybe not possible from Google.) When I use the prefix to not send TTS, it still stops the current playing audio/video because it does not see the Chromecast playing the audio/video. (Only the group shows current casting).

Maybe best to use a device to control each speaker as mentioned?
Would that also eliminate the need for individual speaker TTS control as you mentioned?

Anyone else have any ideas?