VLC media player

The vlc platform allows you to control VLC media player.

Configuration

To add a VLC media player to your installation, add the following to your configuration.yamlThe configuration.yaml file is the main configuration file for Home Assistant. It lists the integrations to be loaded and their specific configurations. In some cases, the configuration needs to be edited manually directly in the configuration.yaml file. Most integrations can be configured in the UI. [Learn more] file. After changing the configuration.yamlThe configuration.yaml file is the main configuration file for Home Assistant. It lists the integrations to be loaded and their specific configurations. In some cases, the configuration needs to be edited manually directly in the configuration.yaml file. Most integrations can be configured in the UI. [Learn more] file, restart Home Assistant to apply the changes. The integration is now shown on the integrations page under Settings > Devices & services. Its entities are listed on the integration card itself and on the Entities tab.

# Example configuration.yaml entry
media_player:
  - platform: vlc

Only the “music” media type is supported for now.

This action will control a background VLC instance, therefore you cannot use this to control a VLC instance launched on your desktop, unlike the Kodi media player for example.

Full configuration

A full configuration for VLC could look like the one below:

# Example configuration.yaml entry
media_player:
  - platform: vlc
    name: speaker_1
    arguments: "--alsa-audio-device=hw:1,0"

Additional configuration on macOS

On macOS python-vlc won’t find the VLC plugin directory unless you add this to the user’s .bash_profile that is running Home Assistant:

export VLC_PLUGIN_PATH=$VLC_PLUGIN_PATH:/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/plugins

Additional configuration on Linux

You need to add the homeassistant user to the audio group:

sudo usermod -a -G audio homeassistant