Shairport Sync media player for Home Assistant

This custom media_player for Home Assistant allows you to control and get updates from a Shairport Sync installation using MQTT.

You need to compile Shairport Sync with at least the MQTT and metadata options, for example:

 ./configure --with-mqtt-client --with-metadata

Installation

Manual

You need the Home Assistant MQTT integration set up.

Copy the shairport_sync folder of this repo to <config_dir>/custom_components/shairport_sync/ of your Home Assistant installation. Create the custom_components directory if it doesn't exist.

HACS

Add the repository URL as a custom repository.

Configuration

GUI

Click the Add Integration button and search for Shairport. Enter a friendly name, and the MQTT topic when prompted.

YAML

Add the following to your configuration.yaml's media_player section replacing your/mqtt/topic with what's in your shairport-sync.conf and restart Home Assistant:

  - platform: shairport_sync
    name: Shairport Sync Player
    topic: your/mqtt/topic

Shairport Sync

Some important settings required in your shairport-sync.conf:

mqtt =
{
    enabled = "yes";
    hostname = "<host_of_your_mqtt_broker>";
    port = 1883; // MQTT broker port; this is the default
    topic = "your/mqtt/topic";
    publish_parsed = "yes"; // For metadata
    publish_cover = "yes"; // Album art
    enable_remote = "yes"; // Remote control
}

Compatibility

The current version of this integration has been tested against Shairport Sync 4.1 and Home Assistant Core 2023.1.7 & 2023.3.0.

Version 1.1.1 of this integration has been tested against Shairport Sync 3.3.7rc1 and Home Assistant Core 2021.12.5.

Version 1.0.3 of this integration was tested against Home Assistant 0.114.1 and supported up to version 2021.11.5.

Tested Shairport Sync details:

3.3.7rc1-alac-OpenSSL-Avahi-ALSA-pipe-soxr-metadata-mqtt-sysconfdir:/etc.

Troubleshooting

Enable logging and log an issue if necessary.

logger:
  default: info
  logs:
    custom_components.shairport_sync: debug

Shairport Sync's MQTT code is chatty so you will see duplicate log entries.

Advanced Usage

If you have a device such as a Raspberry Pi that runs Shairport Sync which is connected to an audio system that can be switched on and off with a smart plug and you would like to have a power button on your media player card in Lovelace (Home Assistant) you can create a universal player. Here is an example based on the example player config above.

  - platform: universal
    name: Universal Shairport Sync Player
    children:
      - media_player.shairport_sync_player
    commands:
      turn_on:
        service: switch.turn_on
        target:
          entity_id: switch.your_smart_plug
      turn_off:
        service: switch.turn_off
        target:
          entity_id: switch.your_smart_plug
    attributes:
      state: switch.your_smart_plug

Here is one way to use this with the custom Mini Media Player card.

  - type: custom:mini-media-player
    name: Shairport Sync Player
    entity: media_player.universal_shairport_sync_player
    artwork: cover
    volume_stateless: true
    toggle_power: false  # make it use turn_on/turn_off instead of the toggle service
    hide:
      power: false
      power_state: false
      volume: false
      mute: true
    idle_view:
      when_idle: false
      when_paused: false
      when_standby: false

PS: Note the use of toggle_power above. Using the toggle service of the universal media player won't work as expected in this case (it won't do anything). Tell MMP to use the explicit turn_on and turn_off services instead. You can find more information here.