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Kodi

The kodi platform allows you to control a Kodi multimedia system from Home Assistant.

The preferred way to set up the Kodi platform is through discovery, which requires an enabled web interface on your Kodi installation.

There is currently support for the following device types within Home Assistant:

Media player
Notifications

Configuration

To add the Kodi integration to your Home Assistant instance, use this My button:

Kodi can be auto-discovered by Home Assistant. If an instance was found, it will be shown as Discovered. You can then set it up right away.

Manual configuration steps

If it wasn’t discovered automatically, don’t worry! You can set up a manual integration entry:

Browse to your Home Assistant instance.
Go to Settings > Devices & Services.
In the bottom right corner, select the Add Integration button.
From the list, select Kodi.
Follow the instructions on screen to complete the setup.

If you previously had Kodi configured through 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], it’s advisable to remove it, and configure from the UI. If you do not remove it, your configuration will be imported with the following limitations:

Your turn on/off actions will not be imported. This functionality is now available through device triggers.
You may have duplicate entities.
Kodi must be on when Home Assistant is loading for the first time for the configuration to be imported.

Turning On/Off

You can customize your turn on and off actions through automations. Simply use the relevant Kodi device triggers and your automation will be called to perform the turn_on or turn_off sequence; see the Kodi turn on/off samples section for scripts that can be used.

These automations can be configured through the UI (see device triggers for automations). If you prefer YAML, you’ll need to get the device ID from the UI automation editor. Automations would be of the form:

automation:
  - alias: "Kodi: turn on"
    triggers:
      - trigger: device
        device_id: !secret kodi_device_id
        domain: kodi
        entity_id: media_player.kodi
        type: turn_on
    actions:
      - action: script.kodi_turn_on

  - alias: "Kodi: turn off"
    triggers:
      - trigger: device
        device_id: !secret kodi_device_id
        domain: kodi
        entity_id: media_player.kodi
        type: turn_off
    actions:
      - action: script.kodi_turn_off

Actions

Action kodi.add_to_playlist

Add music to the default playlist (i.e., playlistid=0).

Data attribute	Optional	Description
`entity_id`	no	Name(s) of the Kodi entities where to add the media.
`media_type`	yes	Media type identifier. It must be one of SONG or ALBUM.
`media_id`	no	Unique Id of the media entry to add (`songid` or `albumid`). If not defined, `media_name` and `artist_name` are needed to search the Kodi music library.
`media_name`	no	Optional media name for filtering media. Can be ‘ALL’ when `media_type` is ‘ALBUM’ and `artist_name` is specified, to add all songs from one artist.
`artist_name`	no	Optional artist name for filtering media.

Action kodi.call_method

Call a Kodi JSON-RPC API method with optional parameters. Results of the Kodi API call will be redirected in a Home Assistant event: kodi_call_method_result.

Data attribute	Optional	Description
`entity_id`	no	Name(s) of the Kodi entities where to run the API method.
`method`	yes	Name of the Kodi JSON-RPC API method to be called.
any other parameter	no	Optional parameters for the Kodi API call.

Event triggering

When calling the kodi.call_method action, if the Kodi JSON-RPC API returns data, when received by Home Assistant it will fire a kodi_call_method_result event on the event bus with the following event_data:

entity_id: "<Kodi media_player entity_id>"
result_ok: <boolean>
input: <input parameters of the action>
result: <data received from the Kodi API>

Kodi turn on/off samples

The following scripts can be used in automations for turning on/off your Kodi instance; see Turning on/off. You could also simply use these sequences directly in the automations without creating scripts.

Turn on Kodi with Wake on LAN

With this configuration, when calling media_player/turn_on on the Kodi device, a magic packet will be sent to the specified MAC address. To use this action, first you need to configure the wake_on_lan integration in Home Assistant, which is achieved simply by adding wake_on_lan: 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].

script:
  turn_on_kodi_with_wol:
    sequence:
      - action: wake_on_lan.send_magic_packet
        data:
          mac: aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff
          broadcast_address: 192.168.255.255

Turn off Kodi with API calls

Here are the equivalent ways to configure each of the old options to turn off Kodi (quit, hibernate, suspend, reboot, or shutdown):

Quit method

script:
  kodi_quit:
    sequence:
      - action: kodi.call_method
        target:
          entity_id: media_player.kodi
        data:
          method: Application.Quit

Hibernate method

script:
  kodi_hibernate:
    sequence:
      - action: kodi.call_method
        target:
          entity_id: media_player.kodi
        data:
          method: System.Hibernate

Suspend method

script:
  kodi_suspend:
    sequence:
      - action: kodi.call_method
        target:
          entity_id: media_player.kodi
        data:
          method: System.Suspend

Reboot method

script:
  kodi_reboot:
    sequence:
      - action: kodi.call_method
        target:
          entity_id: media_player.kodi
        data:
          method: System.Reboot

Shutdown method

script:
  kodi_shutdown:
    sequence:
      - action: kodi.call_method
        target:
          entity_id: media_player.kodi
        data:
          method: System.Shutdown

Turn on and off the TV with the Kodi JSON-CEC Add-on

For Kodi devices running 24/7 attached to a CEC capable TV (OSMC / OpenElec and systems alike running in Rasperry Pi’s, for example), this configuration enables the optimal way to turn on/off the attached TV from Home Assistant while Kodi is always active and ready:

script:
  turn_on_kodi_with_cec:
  sequence:
    - action: kodi.call_method
      target:
        entity_id: media_player.kodi
      data:
        method: Addons.ExecuteAddon
        addonid: script.json-cec
        params:
          command: activate

  turn_off_kodi_with_cec:
    sequence:
      - action: media_player.media_stop
        target:
          entity_id: media_player.kodi
      - action: kodi.call_method
        target:
          entity_id: media_player.kodi
        data:
          method: Addons.ExecuteAddon
          addonid: script.json-cec
          params:
            command: standby

Important

This example and the following requires to have the script.json-cec plugin installed on your Kodi player. It’ll also expose the endpoints standby, toggle and activate without authentication on your Kodi player. Use this with caution.

Kodi action samples

Simple script to turn on the PVR in some channel as a time function

script:
  play_kodi_pvr:
    alias: "Turn on the silly box"
    sequence:
      - alias: "TV on"
        action: media_player.turn_on
        target:
          entity_id: media_player.kodi
      - alias: "Play TV channel"
        action: media_player.play_media
        target:
          entity_id: media_player.kodi
        data:
          media_content_type: "CHANNEL"
          media_content_id: >
            {% if (now().hour < 14) or ((now().hour == 14) and (now().minute < 50)) %}
              10
            {% elif (now().hour < 16) %}
              15
            {% elif (now().hour < 20) %}
              2
            {% elif (now().hour == 20) and (now().minute < 50) %}
              10
            {% elif (now().hour == 20) or ((now().hour == 21) and (now().minute < 15)) %}
              15
            {% else %}
              10
            {% endif %}

Simple script to play a smart playlist

script:
  play_kodi_smp:
    alias: "Turn on the silly box with random Firefighter Sam episode"
    sequence:
      - alias: "TV on"
        action: media_player.turn_on
        target:
          entity_id: media_player.kodi
      - action: media_player.play_media
        target:
          entity_id: media_player.kodi
        data:
          media_content_type: DIRECTORY
          media_content_id: special://profile/playlists/video/feuerwehrmann_sam.xsp

Trigger a Kodi video library update

script:
  update_library:
    alias: "Update Kodi Library"
    sequence:
      - alias: "Call Kodi update"
        action: kodi.call_method
        target:
          entity_id: media_player.kodi
        data:
          method: VideoLibrary.Scan

Notifications

The kodi notifications platform allows you to send messages to your Kodi multimedia system from Home Assistant.

To add Kodi 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:

# Example configuration.yaml entry
notify:
  - platform: kodi
    name: NOTIFIER_NAME
    host: IP_ADDRESS

Configuration Variables

Looking for your configuration file?

name string (Optional)

Name displayed in the frontend. The notifier will bind to the notify.NOTIFIER_NAME action.

host string Required

The host name or address of the device that is running Kodi.

port integer (Optional, default: 8080)

The HTTP port number.

proxy_ssl boolean (Optional, default: false)

Connect to Kodi with HTTPS. Useful if Kodi is behind an SSL proxy.

username string (Optional)

The XBMC/Kodi HTTP username.

password string (Optional)

The XBMC/Kodi HTTP password.

Script example

kodi_notification:
  sequence:
  - action: notify.NOTIFIER_NAME
    data:
      title: "Home Assistant"
      message: "Message to KODI from Home Assistant!"
      data:
        displaytime: 20000
        icon: "warning"

Message variables

Configuration Variables

Looking for your configuration file?

title string (Optional)

Title that is displayed on the message.

message string Required

Message to be displayed.

data map (Optional)

Configure message properties

icon string (Optional, default: info)

Kodi comes with 3 default icons: info, warning and error, a URL to an image is also valid.

displaytime integer (Optional, default: 10000 ms)

Length in milliseconds the message stays on screen.

To use notifications, please see the getting started with automation page.

Keypress events

key presses of keyboards/remotes can be overwritten in Kodi and configured to send an event to Home Assistant, which can then be used in automations to, for instance, turn up/down the volume of a TV/receiver.

A keypress can be overwritten in Kodi by using the Kodi keymap XML or from within the Kodi GUI using the Keymap Editor add-on.

An example of the Kodi keymap configuration using XML, which will overwrite the volume_up/volume_down buttons and instead send an event to HomeAssistant:

<keymap>
  <global>
    <keyboard>
      <volume_up>NotifyAll("KodiLivingroom", "OnKeyPress", {"key":"volume_up"})</volume_up>
      <volume_down>NotifyAll("KodiLivingroom", "OnKeyPress", {"key":"volume_down"})</volume_down>
    </keyboard>
  </global>
</keymap>

The "KodiLivingroom" can be set to any value and will be present in the event data as the "sender" The "OnKeyPress" is needed to identify the event in Home Assistant, do not change this. The {"key":"volume_up"} can contain any JSON which will be present in the event data under the "data" key, normally this is used to identify which key was pressed.

For possible keyboard key names, see: https://kodi.wiki/view/List_of_keynames For other actions, see: https://kodi.wiki/view/Keymap#Keynames

For the example above, when the volume up key is pressed, an event in Home Assistant will be fired that looks like this:

event_type: kodi_keypress
data:
  type: keypress
  device_id: 72e5g0ay5621f5d719qd8cydj943421a
  entity_id: media_player.kodi_livingroom
  sender: KodiLivingroom
  data:
    key: volume_up

A example of a automation to turn up/down the volume of a receiver using the event:

alias: Kodi keypress
mode: parallel
max: 10
triggers:
  - trigger: event
    event_type: kodi_keypress
    event_data:
      entity_id: media_player.kodi_livingroom
actions:
  - choose:
      - conditions:
          - condition: template
            value_template: "{{trigger.event.data.data.key=='volume_up'}}"
        sequence:
          - action: media_player.volume_up
            target:
              entity_id: media_player.receiver
      - conditions:
          - condition: template
            value_template: "{{trigger.event.data.data.key=='volume_down'}}"
        sequence:
          - action: media_player.volume_down
            target:
              entity_id: media_player.receiver

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