Proposal for a Home Assistant Home Theater Edition: Implementing Widevine L1 (HA-SILVER)

[Gadgad01]

Describe your idea

I propose the development of a Home Assistant Streaming Integration L1 Video Entertainment Ready device (HA-SILVER), centered on the inclusion and implementation of Widevine L1 Digital Rights Management (DRM) decoding hardware and software support and 4k video output. Widevine L1 is essential for streaming high-definition (HD and 4K) content from major services like Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video.

(Obviously, name it whatever you would like.)

Why is this exciting?

1. Think of the HA-SILVER as the next logical step from the popular HA Green. You already made a powerful, efficient, and simple plug-and-play automation hub. The transition to a media-focused version could be much easier than developing a new base platform.

2, Home Assistant is already a trusted name in home control and automation. A certified streaming device from you guys would immediately be taken seriously. The major streaming providers are likely to be eager to feature their apps and provide support, knowing the device comes from a well-known name in the home space.

3. From the customer's perspective, this device is a long overdue consolidation of hardware. Instead of needing three separate boxes—a Home Assistant hub, a dedicated streaming stick/box, and a Home Theater PC (HTPC) for local media/browsing—they get a single, unified device. It becomes the brain of their smart home and the heart of their entertainment system, all in one neat, low-power, and private package.

Potential use cases

The use case is evident; a complete hardware solution for your media center AND home automation. We already are trying to control both with the other, why not just combine them?

Anything else?

The path to a fully certified L1-compliant SoC is likely just a small iteration on what you have already done. The other requirements for boot/firmware/OS to be L1 compliant will be some heavy lifting. I am under no illusion that Widevine was made overbearing for a reason, despite certification being "free". What I would love is privacy and to stop being sold things after already shelling out money.

I hate waiting for my underpowered stream device of choice to finally load and 2/3 of the screen being an ad for football, because corporations control the entire pipeline. These companies firmly believe that if they sell you a crap device for cheap, then you'll forgive them for also pumping it full of unwanted ads, and as the the user experience slowly degrades they are fine with your only other option being buy the new one they sell now.

[mik-laj]

HA doesn’t even handle audio or video output today, so adding full multimedia support would mean building and maintaining an entire stack of codecs, video pipelines, UI framework, and Bluetooth Audio standards and a lot of more. That’s far beyond HA’s current scope as an automation hub. A better path might be improving integration with existing certified playback devices through Companion App instead.

Also, it’s generally not a good idea to put everything into a single device. The more roles it has, the higher the risk of cascading failures — you wouldn’t want your lights, doorbell, or garage control to freeze just because the media player crashed. A media center naturally runs under heavier hardware load and is far more likely to hang or overheat, which makes it a poor candidate for hosting critical home automation services.