HomeKit/Siri Functionality?

[stephenmetzger]

I see in the docs that HomeKit and Siri are listed as having incomplete functionality. Is there any functionality? And if so, how do I configure for HomeKit/Siri. Is there a homebridge plugin needed? My Shairport w/ AP2 instances are working great, would love to be able to see them in HomeKit like my Apple TVs.

Thanks.

[charlesomer]

You should be able to add Shairport Sync to the Home app, but currently the metadata doesn't fully work. It may then allow you to use Siri with Shairport Sync too

[charlesomer]

In theory, you might be able to just update the old docker tag to the unstable-development one - depending on your setup...

[stephenmetzger]

Thanks a ton for all your help. All are updated and integrated into HomeKit.

[charlesomer]

No problem! Glad you were able to get it working 😄

[noelhibbard]

Yeah, tried to restart phone. I'm running:
4.0-dev-179-g2184f1b-AirPlay2-OpenSSL-Avahi-ALSA-soxr-metadata-mqtt-dbus-sysconfdir:/etc

I had this problem when first trying to add shairport-sync to HomeKit. I think I restarted my phone but may have also restarted my HomeKit Hub (Apple TV 4 in my case).

Once added you should be able to use Siri to add remove rooms to playback. For example:
"Hey Siri, playback in the Livingroom"
Or:
"Hey Siri, add the Porch to playback"

Don't quote me on the exact commands. I spent a bunch of time trying different commands and it's really finicky. So I sort of gave up on using Siri for AirPlay2 other than telling it to change the volume in the bathroom while I'm in the shower. Sometimes it will add a room to playback and other times it stops playback in all rooms and then switches to the room I told it to add. I don't think this is a limitation of shairport-sync though. I think it's just the typical Siri bugginess. I have a bunch of HomeKit enabled stuff in my house and Siri is supper inconsistent.

"Hey Siri, goodnight"
"Some devices aren't responding"
All the devices actually responded.

"Hey Siri, water the front yard for 1 hour"
"Okay, I stopped watering the front yard"
The sprinklers in the front yard turn on.

It's a mess.

[noelhibbard]

If anyone manages to figure out exactly what the Siri commands are to add or remove a specific room please share. I think it would be great to gather up all the useful Siri commands related to AirPlay2 and add them to one of the readmes.

[mikebrady]

Just FYI, there's been some improvement in the Home and Siri integration in the latest development version -- 4.1-dev. Comments welcome!

[mikebrady]

Hi Noel. I think it's a good idea, yeah.

[acresp]

I know that there's lot of guesswork involved in this, but hope you'll be able to find how to handle the "Playing" state. Just tried the last rev and it's the same behaviour. The tile in the home app stay greyed out on every devices even if I'm playing something. I think that for instance, on Sonos devices, the tile becomes "lighted up" with the "Playing" state.
But as this, it's all bonus! So great to have the AP2 quiet stable for a moment on all my Pi's ! 🙂

[stephenmetzger]

Thanks Mike! Is there a link anywhere for where the changelogs for the dev builds? I'm having trouble keeping up with new releases.

[mikebrady]

There's the rather sketchy RELEASENOTES-DEVELOPMENT.md.

[stephenmetzger]

This is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you.