OpenHAB and media repositories

I’ve just recently started to look at OpenHAB as a replacement for my current home automation controller. My first foray into (simple) home automation was 25 years ago, and for the last 15+ years I’ve been using a highly configurable automation platform.

I’m now exploring alternatives, as I look to build a new configuration, and very much like what OpenHAB offers.

The one requirement I’ve not been able to confirm that OpenHAB can fulfil is my need for integration of media repository management. What I mean by that is the ability to link to a NAS style media library e.g. ripped/digital music albums and browse these for selection / playlist creation and to then feed a media renderer.

I can see that the Sonos (which I’m using for multiroom audio) binding provides a way to play a specified file, but I don’t see the piece that allows the management and selection of media from a library.

I’ve searched the forums, and apologise if this is already covered, but I can’t find anything.

For me this is essential, as I need my main house control panels to control everything for the room they are linked to - lighting, heating, security and local media playback device.

Thanks in advance, Neil

Not sure what sort of interface you’re really looking for
Now for sure you can mount your NAS share to your openHAB box and access all files there directly and direct audio to some sink, including Sonos, AllPlay
There’s also bindings to control a couple of mediaplayers such as Kodi, MPD, squeezebox.
Also check out the Upnp binding in this thread.

Thanks for the reply. I’d seen that thread, and the piece I’m missing is how to create a UI to browse the media. See the attached file for the type of thing I can produce now.

The system allows access to the media metadata for searching, sorting, filtering, etc and allows an interactive set of tiles using the media metadata to be created eg a list of scrollable album covers, for example.

You can create UIs similar to those that are used by Kodi, Plex, etc for browsing and selecting your media.

In my main cinema room I do use Kodi, and the automation system UI is used to ‘navigate’ the Kodi onscreen display on the various control surfaces I’ve created.

For the multi room, distributed audio, I want to be able to browse the media library using images, as described above, on the ‘control surfaces’ in each room e.g. on an iPad using HABPanel

Does this help describe what I can do right now, and need to recreate in OpenHA?

Some people use OH for this sort of thing but ultimately they end up building their own custom UIs. OH has almost nothing built into it for managing your media beyond “play this file/steam on this device”. You won’t be creating playlists or organizing your media files or browsing through your collection through basically OH UIs.

That being said, OH does integrate with many software systems that excel at that sort of thing and if it had a web based UI like many that Markus mentioned then you can access that ui from your OH UI.

But if you are looking for a home automation system that is also a good media server manager service I’m not sure you will find any solution. They are two very different and very big problems. Best to let software that is built to manage media do that job and let the home automation system do what it is best at, coordinating the actions of as myriad of different technologies and APIs.

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Thank you for the reply. This is what I suspected from my research, and I fully understand why this is the path OpenHAB has chosen.

The automation platform I currently use does integrate both well, which is I guess why I’ve stayed with it so long despite having considered other platforms over the years. Where it falls short is in its support for lightweight control surfaces e.g. android based tablets. It works best on full fat Windows devices, which is why I was once again exploring my options.

Maybe I’ll explore voice control as an alternative to visual media browsing - the hurdle is moving away from how the family and I have become accustomed to controlling everything for so many years :wink:

Neil - What is the software that you are using currently?

CQC from Charmed Quark Sytems.