A multi-output ambient sound mixer for Home Assistant.
Amniotic lets you use a single device to create on-the-fly, custom ambient audio mixes - e.g. mixing Waterfall sounds with Birdsong on one media player entity, while playing Fireplace sounds from a second audio device - to suit your tastes and environment.
The library integrates with Home Assistant via MQTT as a new device, allowing you to create and control ambient mixes from the Home Assistant interface.
I won't explain the general reasons for introducing non-musical sounds into one's environment, but if you find sound masking helps you concentrate in noisy environments, if you're (as I am) slightly misophonic, if you use white noise machines to induce sleep or relaxation, or if you just think sound is an important factor in setting a pleasant ambience, then you might find Amniotic useful.
Since those systems are intended for music, they aren't designed for playing or mixing multiple streams simultaneously with a single device, even if set up in multi-room configurations. Also, the streaming services often won't allow a single account to play multiple streams, even if multiple devices are used.
Anyway, those limitations motivated this library.
There are two ways to install and run Amniotic:
- On the Home Assistant machine itself, as an add-on.
- Install manually, on a separate machine.
To add as an Addon, click here:
Better documentation is coming soon. Currently, the easiest workflow is the following:
- Install as an Addon, using the button above.
- If you're using a non-default address for Home Assistant on your network (i.e. not
homeassistant.local), set that in the Addon configuration. - Add some audio files to the Home Assistant
/media/Amnioticdirectory. Note: currently, you'll need to restart the Addon for it to see new files. - Add the Dashboard to Lovelace.
- Select a Default Theme from A or B. Note: Adding your own themes isn't implemented yet, nor will they be saved between restarts.
- Select a Recording from the dropdown.
- Toggle to Enable the Recording.
- Select a Media Player to stream the Theme to. Note: Your media player needs to support streaming from a basic HTTP stream, which most should.
- Click Stream to Media Player.
- Your Theme should start playing on your Media Player.
- You can now Enable additional Recordings in the Theme, modify their volume, etc., to create a custom mix.
- Note: there's also a Current Theme URL, for if you want to manually paste stream to a non-HA player, like a phone or something.
- You can use basically any device with audio hardware. You just need to allow Home Assistant to see it as a Media Player entity.
- In Home Assistant, install the https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/vlc_telnet
- On your Device, install VLC, and start it in telnet mode, e.g.
vlc -I telnet --telnet-password password --telnet-host 0.0.0.0:4212 - Add your VLC server to the integration.