my idea to stream music from alexa to soundbar

[karlfr]

ok here we go, my play is to ask alexa to play music and it plays on my soundbar

IFTTT -
if: alex recognize phrase 'play kiss FM'
then: pushbullet 'play kiss fm'

tasker (on separate tablet in hallway)
when: tasker receives push 'play kiss fm'
open: URL (url copied from tunein android app of station kiss fm) tunein seems to auto play when loaded

also on same tasker profile

run 'harmony tasker'

sends individual command to change soundbar input to Bluetooth

tablet should auto connect to Bluetooth device. if not then i do have an app called 'Bluetooth automatic' that can be used in tasker to priorities certain devices

i will also add ST in the mix to change color lights etc.

let me know what you think as i have not fully tested yet. by all means try it out and let me know

[Yoda_One]

If you are talking Echo No way yet. If you are talking Dot, Tap or Stick or TV fine.

[kevb]

It appears to me that this would have Alexa tell your tablet to play kiss.fm over the soundbar? Not really streaming from Alexa, and probably easier to set up as a harmony activity, whether through IFTTT or your ST hub. Let us know if it works, though!

[karlfr]

aside from alexa i have tested it all last night and works great. i wouldnt be able to open a URl to play stream without using tasker. might need to replace the crappy tablet though, its a tad slow

[Maff]

ok here we go, my play is to ask alexa to play music and it plays on my soundbar

IFTTT -
if: alex recognize phrase 'play kiss FM'
then: pushbullet 'play kiss fm'

tasker (on separate tablet in hallway)
when: tasker receives push 'play kiss fm'
open: URL (url copied from tunein android app of station kiss fm) tunein seems to auto play when loaded

also on same tasker profile

run 'harmony tasker'

sends individual command to change soundbar input to Bluetooth

tablet should auto connect to Bluetooth device. if not then i do have an app called 'Bluetooth automatic' that can be used in tasker to priorities certain devices

i will also add ST in the mix to change color lights etc.

let me know what you think as i have not fully tested yet. by all means try it out and let me know

Sounds good, I did something very similar, using pushbullet, Harmony Tasket, Autoinput & Spotify.

I managed to create a kind of Echo Dot setup, where I could start spotify on the Echo, then use the command "Alexa, send to big speakers".

My Harmony would kick off my stereo to listen to my audio chromecast; and a tasker script would load Spotify on my house tablet, which would then sync with what I was playing on the echo, and subsequently use Spotify connect controls on the tablet to switch the output of spotify to my Audio chromcast. It would take about 5 seconds to kick off the audio on the stereo, but it did work well...... until Spotify made a chnage to their android app, and now it doesn't play nicely with Autoinput & refuses to register the 'click' on the spotify connect selector.

No idea why they felt the need to make that change! I gave up with it in the end, although it's a great workaround for apps that are not as awkward as Spotify.

[karlfr]

yeah i did originally want to use spotify. i tested with tunein as the auto play from url makes things a lot easier.

i might try some kind of auto input with spotify, but cant see it working. Its crazy that the tasks that seem so simple have so much of a work around being done behind the scenes!

i may try a couple other music apps to, google play, napster etc and see whats best

it was a fiddle to figure out how to stop the radio playing. in the end i just had tasker turn off bluetooth which stopped the app playing and added a task to turn soundbar off.

i will add another task to switch app back to smart tiles too (just to tidy things up) which brings another issue as i cant see a way to automate opening the chrome desktop shortcut for smart tiles, and dont really want to use chrome version cause i dont like seeing the search bar at the top

[Yoda_One]

This is a solution looking for a problem😆
Way to involve. I am a firm believer in KISS.

[Maff]

Yeah it is very annoyingly complex. I do this kind of thing as I just like to see if I can! I love a good project. I got it working again today with Spotify. But it's way too awkward and works unreliably. You have to factor in depending on what device you listened to last spotify may pop up an extra window asking if you want to listen on 'this device', the screen may be portrait or landscape and so will have different things visible on the screen etc etc. I found the best way was to force portrait with tasker, and always run it in the same orientation. As I say, Spotify is a pig to automate. If there was a simple tasker intent you could use to change spotify connect device in the cloud it would be so so simple, but spotify are awkward. I've given up with it.