Kodi

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

To add Kodi to your installation, add the following to your configuration.yaml file:

# Example configuration.yaml entry
media_player:
  - platform: kodi
    host: 192.168.0.123

Configuration variables:

host (Required): The host name or address of the device that is running XBMC/Kodi.
port (Optional): The HTTP port number. Defaults to 8080.
tcp_port (Optional): The TCP port number. Defaults to 9090. Used for websocket connections to Kodi.
name (Optional): The name of the device used in the frontend.
proxy_ssl (Optional): Connect to kodi with HTTPS and WSS. Defaults to false. Useful if Kodi is behind an SSL proxy.
username (Optional): The XBMC/Kodi HTTP username.
password (Optional): The XBMC/Kodi HTTP password.
turn_on_action (Optional): Home Assistant script sequence to call when turning on.
turn_off_action (Optional): Home Assistant script sequence to call when turning off.
enable_websocket (Optional): Enable websocket connections to Kodi via the TCP port. Defaults to true. The websocket connection allows Kodi to push updates to Home Assistant and removes the need for Home Assistant to poll. If websockets don’t work on your installation this can be set to false.
timeout (Optional): Set timeout for connections to Kodi. Defaults to 5 seconds.

Service `kodi_add_to_playlist`

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

Service 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.

Service `kodi_call_method`

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

Service 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 JSONRPC API method to be called.
any other parameter	no	Optional parameters for the Kodi API call.

Event triggering

When calling the kodi_call_method service, if the Kodi JSONRPC 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 service call>
result: <data received from the Kodi API>

Kodi turn on/off samples

With the turn_on_action and turn_off_action parameters you can run any combination of Home Assistant actions to turn on/off your Kodi instance. Here are a few examples of this usage, including the migration instructions for the old turn_off_action list of options.

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 service, first you need to config the wake_on_lan component in Home Assistant, which is achieved simply by adding wake_on_lan: to your configuration.yaml.

media_player:
  - platform: kodi
    host: 192.168.0.123
    turn_on_action:
      - service: 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 (before was turn_off_action: quit)

media_player:
  - platform: kodi
    host: 192.168.0.123
    turn_off_action:
      service: media_player.kodi_call_method
      data:
        entity_id: media_player.kodi
        method: Application.Quit

Hibernate method (before was turn_off_action: hibernate)

media_player:
  - platform: kodi
    host: 192.168.0.123
    turn_off_action:
      service: media_player.kodi_call_method
      data:
        entity_id: media_player.kodi
        method: System.Hibernate

Suspend method (before was turn_off_action: suspend)

media_player:
  - platform: kodi
    host: 192.168.0.123
    turn_off_action:
      service: media_player.kodi_call_method
      data:
        entity_id: media_player.kodi
        method: System.Suspend

Reboot method (before was turn_off_action: reboot)

media_player:
  - platform: kodi
    host: 192.168.0.123
    turn_off_action:
      service: media_player.kodi_call_method
      data:
        entity_id: media_player.kodi
        method: System.Reboot

Shutdown method (before was turn_off_action: shutdown)

media_player:
  - platform: kodi
    host: 192.168.0.123
    turn_off_action:
      service: media_player.kodi_call_method
      data:
        entity_id: media_player.kodi
        method: System.Shutdown

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

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:

media_player:
  - platform: kodi
    host: 192.168.0.123
    turn_on_action:
      service: media_player.kodi_call_method
      data:
        entity_id: media_player.kodi
        method: Addons.ExecuteAddon
        addonid: script.json-cec
        params:
          command: activate
    turn_off_action:
    - service: media_player.media_stop
      data:
        entity_id: media_player.kodi
    - service: media_player.kodi_call_method
      data:
        entity_id: media_player.kodi
        method: Addons.ExecuteAddon
        addonid: script.json-cec
        params:
          command: standby

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

Kodi services 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
        service: media_player.turn_on
        data:
          entity_id: media_player.kodi

      - alias: Play TV channel
        service: media_player.play_media
        data_template:
          entity_id: media_player.kodi
          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 %}

Trigger a Kodi video library update

script:
  update_library:
    alias: Update Kodi Library
    sequence:
      - alias: Call Kodi update
        service: media_player.kodi_call_method
        data:
          entity_id: media_player.kodi
          method: VideoLibrary.Scan

For a more complex usage of the kodi_call_method service, with event triggering of Kodi API results, you can have a look at this example

Service kodi_add_to_playlist

Service kodi_call_method