Is there a better way to start radio on chromecast devices?

Questions & Help
1

Hi,

Since the google chromecast update 7 days ago my chromecast devices are semi-working within Homey again. They are listed as devices and I can stop them if they were playing.

I have several google home mini’s, it’s bigger brother and a couple of google chromecasts connected to TV’s.

What I would really want if that my alarm flow could start a radio station on the chromecast device, but I doubt this is possible as it only has “cast a youtube video, cast a video, cast a sound URL, cast a webpage” as flow options (next to play,pause,next,previous,mute and set volume).

So I figured waking up with a youtube song would at least be something and I created a flow casting a youtube video URL. But… this fails (nothing happens). After that I tried “cast a webpage” with the same youtube URL. It started playing for seconds and then the entire app seems to crash cause all chromecast devices became unresponsive for some time.

So that did not work. I thought it could be because the google mini and bigger brother were audio-only devices and could not stream video, but the chromecast connected to the TV has the exact same issue.

So the search continued and I found the “Radio” app by Bas van den Bosch. Installed it, configured a radio station stream, but don’t further understand it. I can’t add a device using the “Radio” app and I don’t see it anywhere within the “Then” section of a flow so I don’t know if this could be a solution (if it can actually also stream to chromecasts),

Next I checked IFTTT, but that does not seem to have any integration with google home devices to start playing anything.

So now I’m stuck with the worst option, my Homey is next to one of the google mini’s, so each morning Homey is using speech to say: “Ok Google, start radio 538 on bedroom speaker”. But there has to be a better alternative to that?

2

Cast a music URL and than use a link from this list by example:

https://www.hendrikjansen.nl/henk/streaming.html#cz

3

I cast the url of a radio station. Funny enough it works if you cast it as webpage and it doesn’t if you cast it as mp3 url (which it is I think)
But most important is it works.

4

Inhave been using cast a radiostation for a long time.
image

I created a virtual device “Radio”, so now I can tell google home:
Okey Google put the radio on
(No ask homey required, no zone required)

1 Like
5

It’s still not working somehow. I selected the chromecast speaker within the “Then”, selected “Cast a audio URL” and placed the mp3 stream in it. If I open that URL within my browser, music starts playing. If I start the flow, I get a waiting circle that continues to spin, no error message and nothing happening on the google device.

SmartSelect_20190704-135411_Homey
SmartSelect_20190704-135411_Homey.jpg1356×494 144 KB

6

This is also not working for me. Somehow using this option starting the flow gives it a green checkbox almost immediately, but nothing starts playing on the device. I also added a “Set volume to 100” item after starting the webpage, to be sure that it was not starting it on mute on anything, but setting the volume fails after sometime. Almost as if casting the webpage is causing the app to crash.

7

??? How did you get that option? Mine is not listing “Cast een Radiostation”. Also, you have a different speaker icon. Mine has a light blue icon and is missing the cable. What version of the app are you using?

8

I can make it work using cast audio URL. But this only works on a single CC audio and not a group I created with all speakers. So I cannot create a flow that casts my favorite radio channel on all speakers. Complete and utter useless for me then.
Guess I’ll have to go back to my Google routine unless this general CC issues gets fixed.
Also, how come they removed the cast radio station in the new beta?

Update. I can add the several CC audio devices separately and make it work on all speakers. So I guess that’ll have to do for now :man_shrugging:

Update 2. Doing it like mentioned above results in an asynchronous stream, which then again makes this solution useless

9

Did not upgrade to homey v2 yet (waiting for the zigbee update). So that probaly explains the different icon.
App version 3.1.4

10

Watch out with that, you dont want to blow up your speakers when it suddenly starts working

11

For me casting to a group also worked as expected.

12

I think that explains how you can also still stream a radiostation. Think they removed that feature from the new version.

I don’t think setting the volume to 100 will blow up the speakers, they are integrated to the google device, so if it receives a command to set the volume to 100 I think it will turn it up to the maximum it can safely handle, just like turning the volume up full on the device itself.

I’m starting to believe they have a half-ready app in place that is still not fully functional and a bit buggy. Hopefully this will all resolve itself in time. Until then the annoying BEEP BEEP BEEP of my current alarm will continue to wake me up.

13

They call it beta for a reason u know!

14

Where do they call it beta? This is the 5.0.10 version of google chromecast. Or do you mean that the entire homey v2 should still be seen as beta?

I do see that Homey installed Homey to 2.3.0 7 hours ago and Google Chromecast to version 5.0.13 3 hours ago so perhaps I’ll have more luck now. But I don’t think I ever installed the beta version of it, however I do get the feeling that a lot with Homey is ongoing beta, even when they call it the stable version.

EDIT: Even with the new 5.0.13 version there is no “cast a radiostation” and it still fails. It’s not indicating to be a beta version anywhere.

15

Just saw they updated the app 2 days ago, sorry

16

Yeah, lost all my stations. Not very happy with it😬

17

I have a chromecast audio, maybe that has different options?

My chromecast audio is connected to a mini amplifier.
Putting it to 100 is a risk… (for my speakers or my ears :wink:)

18

The developer wrote:
Hi, The radio casting will be back in the next update! Sorry for any inconvience.

19

That would be great, hope it arrives soon and it works as well, cause all other casting options seem to fail on my devices.

20

I got it working with the radio app for now