VIZIO SmartCast

The VIZIO SmartCast integrationIntegrations connect and integrate Home Assistant with your devices, services, and more. [Learn more] allows you to control SmartCast-compatible TVs and sound bars (2016+ models) locally from Home Assistant.

Use cases

• Control your TV or sound bar (power, volume, inputs, and apps) from dashboards and automations.
• Turn on the TV and launch a specific app when a movie night scene is activated.
• Automatically lower the volume at night or when a doorbell rings.
• Send remote control key presses (navigation, playback, channel control) from automations or scripts.

Prerequisites

Your device must be connected to the same network as Home Assistant. If Zeroconf discovery is enabled, your device is discovered automatically and setup can be started from the discovered card.

TVs require an access token to communicate with Home Assistant. You do not need one up front: leave the access token field empty during setup, and the integration will guide you through a pairing process in which a PIN is displayed on the TV screen. Sound bars do not require an access token.

Configuration

To add the VIZIO SmartCast device to your Home Assistant instance, use this My button:

VIZIO SmartCast 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.

Finding your device’s address

If your device is not automatically discovered, you can find its address using the vizaio command line tool on any machine on the same network:

pip3 install 'vizaio[cli]'
vizaio discover

If the pip3 command is not found, replace it with pip.

Write down the IP address and port number of the device you want to add. If you have trouble finding a device you were expecting to see, you can try increasing the discovery timeout period by adding the --timeout option (for example, vizaio discover --timeout 10).

Pairing manually using vizaio

Pairing through the Home Assistant frontend is recommended, but you can also obtain an access token manually. Make sure that your TV is on, then run the interactive pairing command by replacing DEVICE_IP:DEVICE_PORT with the address obtained in the previous section:

vizaio pair interactive DEVICE_IP:DEVICE_PORT

A PIN code will be displayed at the top of your TV. Enter it when prompted. For scripted use, vizaio pair begin DEVICE_IP:DEVICE_PORT starts pairing and prints the matching vizaio pair complete command with everything filled in except the PIN. Provide the returned authentication token in the access token field during setup.

Options

To define options for VIZIO SmartCast, follow these steps:

1. In Home Assistant, go to Settings > Devices & services.

2. If multiple instances of VIZIO SmartCast are configured, choose the instance you want to configure.

3. On the card, select the cogwheel .

   • If the card does not have a cogwheel, the integration does not support options for this device.

   

4. Edit the options, then select Submit to save the changes.

Obtaining a list of valid apps to include or exclude

The list of apps is fetched daily from VIZIO’s app catalog (with a copy bundled in the vizaio library as a fallback). To see the names you can include or exclude, check the source_list attribute of your TV’s media player entity under Settings > Tools > States.

Supported functionality

Media player

The integration creates a media player entity for each configured device. Depending on the device type, it supports:

• Power on/off and power state.
• Volume up/down by the configured volume step, setting an absolute volume level, and muting.
• Source selection: for TVs, the source list combines the device’s physical inputs with the available SmartCast apps, and selecting an app launches it. For speakers, the source list contains the physical inputs.
• Sound mode selection (when the device reports equalizer sound modes).
• Play/pause and next/previous track (next/previous change the channel on TVs).

When an app is running on a TV, the media player shows the app name.

Obtaining an app configuration

If there is an app you want to be able to launch from Home Assistant that isn’t detected by default, you can read the app’s configuration from the app_id attribute of the media player entity while the (unknown) app is running on your device.

Remote

The integration creates a remote entity for each configured device (TVs and speakers). You can use it to send remote control commands via the remote.send_command action. Commands are case-insensitive. You can use either the native key name (for example, vol_up) or a human-friendly alias (for example, volume_up).

TV commands

Speaker commands

Speakers support a subset of the commands above:

input_next, mute_off, mute_on, mute_toggle, pause, play, pow_off, pow_on, pow_toggle, vol_down, vol_up

Aliases that map to these commands (for example, mute, volume_up, on, off) also work on speakers.

Remote command examples

Send a single command:

action: remote.send_command
target:
  entity_id: remote.vizio_smartcast
data:
  command:
    - enter

Send multiple commands:

action: remote.send_command
target:
  entity_id: remote.vizio_smartcast
data:
  command:
    - down
    - down
    - enter

Repeat a command with a delay between each repeat:

action: remote.send_command
target:
  entity_id: remote.vizio_smartcast
data:
  command:
    - volume_up
  num_repeats: 5
  delay_secs: 0.4

List of actions

The VIZIO SmartCast integrationIntegrations connect and integrate Home Assistant with your devices, services, and more. [Learn more] provides the following actions. Each link below opens a dedicated page with examples, parameters, and a step-by-step UI walkthrough.

• Send text (vizio.send_text) Types text into the on-screen field that currently has focus on a VIZIO SmartCast device.

• Update setting (vizio.update_setting) Updates the value of a setting on a VIZIO SmartCast device.

For an overview of every action across all integrations, see the actions reference.

Crave portable speakers

Battery-powered VIZIO Crave portable speakers (Crave Go, Crave 360, and Crave Pro) are supported as speakers. When a speaker is set up, the integration automatically detects whether it is a Crave model — no extra configuration is needed. Speakers that were set up before this detection existed are re-checked the next time the integration loads.

Crave speakers additionally provide two diagnostic entities:

• Battery: the current battery level as a percentage.
• Charging: on while the battery is charging. A fully charged speaker is no longer drawing charge and reports off, so use the battery level to tell when it is full.

Both show as unknown while the speaker is turned off.

VIZIO SmartCast automation examples

Here is an idea to get you started.

Automation: start movie night

This automation turns the TV on and launches an app when you start movie night. It is triggered by a toggle helperA helper is a virtual entity you create inside Home Assistant. It is not backed by a physical device. Helpers store values, track state, or do calculations that your automations and dashboards need. [Learn more] named Movie night, which you need to create separately under Settings > Devices & services > Helpers.

• Trigger: State
  • Entity: Movie night (input_boolean.movie_night)
  • To: On
• Action: Turn on media player
  • Target: VIZIO SmartCast (media_player.vizio_smartcast)
• Action: Select media player source
  • Target: VIZIO SmartCast (media_player.vizio_smartcast)
  • Source: Netflix

alias: "Movie night"
triggers:
  - trigger: state
    entity_id: input_boolean.movie_night
    to: "on"
actions:
  - action: media_player.turn_on
    target:
      entity_id: media_player.vizio_smartcast
  - action: media_player.select_source
    target:
      entity_id: media_player.vizio_smartcast
    data:
      source: Netflix

Data updates

This integration uses local pollingData polling is the process of querying a device or service at regular intervals to check for updates or retrieve data. By defining a custom polling interval, you can control how frequently your system checks for new data, which can help optimize performance and reduce unnecessary network traffic. [Learn more]: the device is polled every 30 seconds for power state, volume, current input, and the running app.

The SmartCast app catalog, used to build the source list for TVs, is fetched from VIZIO’s servers once a day. If the catalog cannot be fetched, a copy bundled with the vizaio library is used as a fallback.

Known limitations

Changing tracks

Changing tracks works like switching channels. If the current input is anything other than regular TV, this command might not do anything.

Troubleshooting

The device cannot be reached during setup

• Make sure the device is powered on and connected to the same network as Home Assistant.
• Verify the address and port. Running vizaio discover shows the correct address and port for each device on your network.
• Some devices only respond over the network while they are on. Turn the device on before setting it up.

Turning on the device doesn’t work

If the Power Mode of your device is set to Eco Mode, the device does not listen for network traffic while off, and turning it on from Home Assistant won’t work. Set the power mode to Quick Start to be able to turn the device on.

The device became unavailable after its IP address changed

If Zeroconf discovery is enabled, the integration updates the device’s address automatically when it is rediscovered. Otherwise, assigning the device a static IP address (via a DHCP reservation in your router) prevents the address from changing.

Pairing fails

• Ensure the PIN is entered exactly as displayed on the TV, and that the TV stays powered on during the pairing process.
• If the PIN screen never appears, power cycle the TV and restart the setup.

Removing the integration

This integration follows standard integration removal. No extra steps are required.

To remove an integration instance from Home Assistant

1. Go to Settings > Devices & services and select the integration card.
2. From the list of devices, select the integration instance you want to remove.
3. Next to the entry, select the three dots menu. Then, select Delete.