Control an HEOS player with a Python script

Requirements

You have an HEOS speaker in your local network and Python 2.7 or Python 3.

Usage

0. Install the package with pip install heospy or by downloading the source package and run python setup.py install.

1. Create a config.json file, which may reside in the current directory, in $HOME/.heospy or in a directory wich is specified by the environment variable $HEOSPY_CONF. The config file contains the name of the lead HEOS player you want to control and the username and password of your HEOS account. See example-config.json for an example.

2. Run the script for the first time to see how this works:

    $ heos_player
    2017-02-12 20:32:29,880 INFO Starting to discover your HEOS player 'Living room' in your local network
    2017-02-12 20:32:36,824 INFO Found 'Living room' in your local network
    $
   

3. Now you can call any command from the CLI specs, see also docs/ folder. Additional arguments are given with -p. The player id will be automatically submitted. Some examples:

    heos_player player/toggle_mute
    heos_player player/set_volume -p level=19
    heos_player player/play_preset -p preset=3
    heos_player player/set_play_state -p state=stop
    heos_player group/toggle_mute
    heos_player group/toggle_mute -p gid=-1352658342
   

   Use the flag --help for a detailed help.

Parsing the response from HEOS

heos_player returns a JSON object which directly comes from an HEOS player. For example:

python heospy/heos_player.py player/get_volume

gives something like

{
    "heos": {
        "message": "pid=-1352658342&level=13", 
        "command": "player/get_volume", 
        "result": "success"
    }
}

Unfortunately, HEOS hides some of the results in the message property (here: the volume level of the main player). heospy parses the message string and puts the contained attributes in a seperate property heos_message_parsed:

 {
   "heos_message_parsed": {
     "pid": "-1352658342", 
     "level": "13"
   }, 
   "heos": {
     "message": "pid=-1352658342&level=13", 
     "command": "player/get_volume", 
     "result": "success"
   }
 }

With jq, you can directly get the result on the command line:

 $ python heospy/heos_player.py player/get_volume | jq .heos_message_parsed.level
 "13"

Main player setting and referencing other players by name

The class HeosPlayer assumes a main HEOS player, stored in the config file. For commands starting with player/, we assume that this player should be used, otherwise you need to specify the player id explicitly as a parameter pid.

You may also specify a player by name by using the fake parameter pname: the class HeosPlayer will search for a player with the given name and will try to translate it to a player id, e.g. with:

  $ python heospy/heos_player.py player/get_volume -p pname=Küche
  [...]
  2019-01-15 20:04:51,624 INFO Issue command 'player/get_volume' with arguments {"pname": "K\u00fcche"}
  2019-01-15 20:04:51,624 DEBUG translated name 'Küche' to {'pname': 'pid', 'gname': 'gid'}=941891005
  2019-01-15 20:04:51,625 INFO cmd : player/get_volume, args &pid=941891005
  [...]
  {
     "heos_message_parsed": {
       "pid": "941891005", 
       "level": "12"
     }, 
     "heos": {
       "message": "pid=941891005&level=12", 
       "command": "player/get_volume", 
       "result": "success"
     }
   }

If the main player is a lead player in a group, this group is also the main group for commands starting with group/. Again, you can override this setting be explicitly mention the group id as a parameter. You may also specify the group by name with a fake parameter gname.

Rudimentary scripting of HEOS commands

You can also execute a sequence of commands at once. The sequence can be given in a text file:

heos_player -i cmds.txt

An example for cmds.txt is:

system/heart_beat
# let's set a volume level
player/set_volume level=10
# let's check if the volume is correct
player/get_volume

Note that comments are possible and start with a #. There is also a special command wait, which waits a number of seconds until the next command is played.

# play an MP3 file, wait 360 seconds and then turn the mute button on
player/play_stream pname=Küche url=http://example.com/example.mp3
wait 360 
player/set_mute -p state=on

It's a current limitation that heospy doesn't listen to events emitted from any HEOS player.

You can also get the sequence of commands from stdin:

printf "system/heart_beat\nplayer/set_volume level=10\nplayer/get_volume" | heos_player -i -

Usage with Raspberry Pi and Kodi

If you have OSMC or any other Kodi Media center implementation on your Raspberry Pi, you can map certain actions for your HEOS on a keymap.

Example keyboard.xml-file:

<keymap>
<global>
<keyboard>
<F1>RunScript(heos_player, player/play_preset, -p, preset=1)</F1>
<F2>RunScript(heos_player, player/play_preset, -p, preset=2)</F2>
<F3>RunScript(heos_player, player/play_preset, -p, preset=3)</F3>
<F4>RunScript(heos_player, player/play_preset, -p, preset=4)</F4>
<F12>RunScript(heos_player, player/set_play_state, -p, state=stop)</F12>
</keyboard>
</global>
<Home>
</Home>
</keymap>

Limitations

Currently, heospy cannot listen to events from an HEOS player. Events are described in the specification. Please contact me, if you are interested in helping out.

Credits

• first code from https://github.com/mrjohnsen/heos-python
• the SSDS discovery library is from https://gist.github.com/dankrause/6000248, with an additional modification by Adam Baxter to get this working for Python 3.