Plex Media Server

The Plex integration allows you to connect Home Assistant to a Plex Media Server. Once configured, actively streaming Plex Clients show up as Media Players and report playback status and library sizes via Sensors in Home Assistant. Media Players will allow you to control media playback and see the current playing item.

Support for playing music directly on linked Sonos speakers is available for users with an active Plex Pass subscription. More information here.

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

• Sensor
• Media Player

If a Plex server has been claimed by a Plex account via the claim interface, Home Assistant will require authentication to connect.

Configuration

Adding Plex Media Server to your Home Assistant instance can be done via the user interface, by using this My button:

During setup, the integration will check all possible ways to connect to your Plex server(s) - i.e., local or public addresses, HTTP or HTTPS, by IP or using a subdomain of plex.direct, or by using a Plex relay if all other methods fail. The integration will prefer local over public and secure over insecure, in that order. The selected address is shown on the Plex card on the Integrations page.

If your router enforces DNS rebind protection, connections to the local plex.direct hostname may fail (see Plex documentation). To avoid this, configure your router to allow DNS rebinding for plex.direct by following the instructions in the documentation link.

Integration Options

Several options are provided to adjust the behavior of media_player entities. These can be changed at Plex -> Options on the Integrations page.

Use episode art: Display TV episode art instead of TV show art.

Monitored users: A list of accounts with access to the Plex server. Only selected users will create media_player entities.

Ignore new managed/shared users: Enable to ignore new Plex accounts granted access to the server.

Ignore Plex Web clients: Do not create media_player entities for Plex Web clients.

Manual Configuration

Alternatively, you can manually configure a Plex server connection by selecting the “Configure Plex server manually” when configuring a Plex integration. This option is only available to users in “Advanced Mode”. This will allow you to specify the server connection options which will be validated before setup is completed. The available options are described below:

Host: The IP address or hostname of your Plex server. Optional if ‘Token’ is provided.

Port: The port of your Plex Server.

Use SSL: Use HTTPS to connect to Plex server.

Verify SSL certificate: Verify the SSL certificate of your Plex server. May be used if connecting with an IP or if using a self-signed certificate.

Token: A valid authorization token for your Plex server. If provided without ‘Host’, a connection URL will be retrieved from Plex.

Sensor

The activity sensor provides a count of users currently watching media from the Plex server. Clicking the sensor shows details for the active users and media streams.

The library sensors show a count of items in each library. Depending on the library contents, the sensor will show extra detail in its attributes. For example, a library sensor for TV shows will represent the total number of episodes in the library and its attributes will also report the number of shows and seasons it contains.

Media Player

The Plex media player platform will create Media Player entities for each connected client device. These entities will display media information, playback progress, and playback controls (if supported by the streaming device).

By default, the Plex integration will create Media Player entities for all local, managed, and shared users on the Plex server. To customize which users or client types to monitor, adjust the “Monitored users”, “Ignore new managed/shared users”, and “Ignore Plex Web clients” options described under Integration Options.

Service media_player.play_media

Plays a song, album, artist, playlist, TV show/season/episode, movie, or video on a connected client.

Required fields within the media_content_id payloads are marked as such, others are optional.

Music

Examples:

entity_id: media_player.plex_player
media_content_type: MUSIC
media_content_id: '{ "library_name": "Music", "artist_name": "Adele", "album_name": "25", "track_name": "Hello" }'

entity_id: media_player.plex_player
media_content_type: MUSIC
media_content_id: '{ "library_name": "Music", "artist_name": "Stevie Wonder", "shuffle": "1" }'

Playlist

Example:

entity_id: media_player.plex_player
media_content_type: PLAYLIST
media_content_id: '{ "playlist_name": "The Best of Disco", "shuffle": "1" }'

TV Episode

Examples:

entity_id: media_player.plex_player
media_content_type: EPISODE
media_content_id: '{ "library_name": "Adult TV", "show_name": "Rick and Morty", "season_number": 2, "episode_number": 5 }'

entity_id: media_player.plex_player
media_content_type: EPISODE
media_content_id: '{ "library_name": "Kid TV", "show_name": "Sesame Street", "shuffle": "1" }'

Movie

For movies it’s usually sufficient to provide the title. However, if the title you provide has multiple matches (such as with remakes), more search keys may be necessary. These optional keys can be included in the media_content_id JSON payload to restrict the search:

• unwatched: Restrict search to unwatched items only (True, False)
• actor: Restrict search for movies that include a specific actor
• collection: Restrict search within a named Plex collection (“Back to the Future”, “Indiana Jones”)
• contentRating: Restrict search to a specific content rating (“PG”, “R”)
• country: Restrict search to a specific country of origin
• decade: Restrict search to a specific decade (“1960”, “2010”)
• director: Restrict search to a specific director
• genre: Restrict search to a specific genre (“Animation”, “Drama”, “Sci-Fi”)
• resolution: Restrict search to a specific video resolution (480, 720, 1080, “4k”)
• year: Restrict search to a specific year

Examples:

entity_id: media_player.plex_player
media_content_type: movie
media_content_id: '{ "library_name": "Adult Movies", "title": "Blade" }'

entity_id: media_player.plex_player
media_content_type: movie
media_content_id: '{ "library_name": "Adult Movies", "title": "The Manchurian Candidate", year=1962 }'
# Would find the original instead of the 2004 remake

“Lazy” searches are also possible:

entity_id: media_player.plex_player
media_content_type: movie
media_content_id: '{ "library_name": "Adult Movies", "title": "die hard", year=1995 }'
# Would find the sequel, "Die Hard: With a Vengeance"

Compatibility

Sonos Playback

To play Plex music directly to Sonos speakers, the following requirements must be met:

1. Have an active Plex Pass subscription.
2. Remote access enabled for your Plex server.
3. Sonos speakers linked to your Plex account (Instructions).
4. Sonos integration configured.

Call the media_player.play_media service with the entity_id of a Sonos integration device and media_content_type prepended with plex://. Both music and playlist media_content_type values are supported.

Examples:

entity_id: media_player.sonos_speaker
media_content_type: music
media_content_id: 'plex://{ "library_name": "Music", "artist_name": "Adele", "album_name": "25", "track_name": "Hello" }'

entity_id: media_player.sonos_speaker
media_content_type: playlist
media_content_id: 'plex://{ "playlist_name": "Party Mix" }'

Additional Services

Service plex.refresh_library

Refresh a Plex library to scan for new and updated media.

Service plex.scan_for_clients

Scan for new controllable Plex clients. This may be necessary in scripts or automations which control a Plex media_player entity, but where the underlying device must be turned on first.

Example script:

play_plex_on_tv:
  sequence:
    - service: media_player.select_source
      target:
        entity_id: media_player.smart_tv
      data:
        source: "Plex"
    - wait_template: "{{ is_state('media_player.smart_tv', 'On') }}"
      timeout: "00:00:10"
    - service: plex.scan_for_clients
    - wait_template: "{{ not is_state('media_player.plex_smart_tv', 'unavailable') }}"
      timeout: "00:00:10"
      continue_on_timeout: false
    - service: media_player.play_media
      target:
        entity_id: media_player.plex_smart_tv
      data:
        media_content_id: "{"library_name": "Movies", "title": "Zoolander"}"
        media_content_type: movie

Notes

• The Plex integration supports multiple Plex servers. Additional connections can be configured under Configuration > Integrations.
• Movies must be located under the ‘Movies’ section in a Plex library to properly view the ‘playing’ state.