nuvo_serial

Home Assistant custom component integration to control a Nuvo Grand Concerto/Essentia G using a serial connection.

What this Integration does:

Auto discovers zone and source settings from a Nuvo Grand Concerto/Essentia G amplifier, create HA Entities for each settings, allowing control through the Home Assistant web interface.

Amplifier controls exposed:

Zone:

• On/Off
• Mute
• Volume
• Source selection

Zone EQ:

• Bass control
• Treble control
• Speaker balance control
• Loudness compensation control

Zone Volume:

• Maximum volume level
• Initial: volume level when a zone is powered on for the first time
• Page: volume level when zone is in page mode
• Party: volume level when zone is in party mode
• Volume Reset: toggle to control whether a zone should always reset to Initial volume level at every power on

Source:

• Gain control

System:

• Party Mode
• Paging
• Zones AllOff

What this Integration does not do:

Provide support for any Nuvo amplifier other than the Grand Concerto/Essentia G.

Interface or control any Nuvonet source component.

Provide a way to send metadata or menus to zone keypads.

Features

Communication between the Nuvo and Home Assistant uses Local Push for state changes, meaning no polling of the Nuvo occurs, so the web interface is fast and responsive. Also as the underlying library nuvo-serial monitors the serial port for activity, any changes to the Nuvo made through zone keypads will be immediately reflected in Home Assistant.

Connection

Connection to the Nuvo amplifier is via the "Programming and Serial Control" RS-232 9-pin female connector, either cabled direct to the device running Home Assistant or remotely over a network using a serial-to-network device.

Direct

Direct connection to the device running Home Assistant, either through a serial-to-serial cable if the device has a serial port, or a USB-to-RS-232 9-pin male cable.

NOTE when using a usb to serial cable, the device name assigned e.g /dev/ttyUSB1 may change when the machine is rebooted and multiple devices on the USB bus are enumerated in a different order. Obviously if this happens Home Assistant will be using the old device name for the serial port and will not be able to contact the Nuvo. To prevent this it's a good idea to assign a fixed device name to the USB cable e.g. /dev/nuvo

Systems and syntax will vary depending on OS etc, but a good Linux-based overview is here.

It essentially comes to down to:

• Use lusb command to identify usb cable ID
• Create /etc/udev/rules.d/99-usb-serial.rules
• Add line: SUBSYSTEM=="tty", ATTRS{idVendor}=="067b", ATTRS{idProduct}=="2303", SYMLINK+="nuvo"
• Reboot, check for existence of /dev/nuvo
• Use /dev/nuvo as Port url in the Integration configuration

Remote

Connecting to the Nuvo over a network is possible using a hardware serial-to-network adapter or software such as ser2net.

The port url should then be in the form: socket://host:port

e.g.

A possible ser2net configuration connecting TCP port 10003 to the nuvo device on /dev/ttyUSB1:

Old syntax:

10003:raw:0:/dev/ttyUSB1:57600 8DATABITS NONE 1STOPBIT

ser2net.yaml syntax:

connection: &nuvo
    accepter: tcp,10003
    enable: on
    options:
      kickolduser: true
    connector: serialdev,
              /dev/ttyUSB1,
              57600n81,local

Port URL: socket://192.168.5.1:10003

Installing

Install using the Home Assistant Community Store HACS.

Once HACS is installed, search the available Integrations for Nuvo multi-zone amplifier (serial) and install to make the integration available for install to Home Assistant.

In Home Assistant home page go to Configuration->Integrations->Add Integration-> Nuvo multi-zone amplifier (serial)

Configure through the GUI:

Port: the url of the serial port e.g /dev/ttyUSB1

Model: Grand Concerto or Essentia G

The existing physical zones and source names are automatically discovered and displayed for optional modification.

An Entity will now be created for each:

Entity	Integration Type
Zone	Media Player
Zone balance	Number
Zone bass	Number
Zone treble	Number
Zone loudness compensation	Switch
Zone Volume Max	Number
Zone Volume Initial	Number
Zone Volume Page	Number
Zone Volume Party	Number
Zone Volume Reset	Switch
Source Gain	Number

Services

nuvo_serial.all_off

Switch off all zones.

nuvo_serial.page_on

Activate Paging feature for all zones. This uses the in-built Nuvo paging feature to switch all zones to use fixed source 6 at a pre-configured paging volume.

nuvo_serial.page_off

Deactivate Paging feature, restoring all zone to pre-page state.

nuvo_serial.party_on

Make the media player zone the party host.

nuvo_serial.party_off

Release the media player zone from being the party host.

nuvo_serial.snapshot

Take a snapshot of the media player zone. Useful for implementing a custom paging feature using automations.

nuvo_serial.restore

Restores the last snapshot of the media player zone.

Keypad Services

The following services simulate pressing the media buttons on a zone's keypad. Useful for testing automations without having to physically press the keypad button.

nuvo_serial.simulate_next_button

Simulate pressing zone keypad Next button.

nuvo_serial.simulate_prev_button

Simulate pressing zone keypad Prev button.

nuvo_serial.simulate_play_pause_button

Simulate pressing zone keypad Play/Pause button.

Automations Triggers

In addition to the media player integration built-in triggers provided by Home Assistant, this integration also provides device triggers for zone keypad Prev, Next and Play/Pause buttons. A press of one of these buttons will cause a device automation trigger to fire. E.g. Triggers for the zone named "Kitchen" can be found in the Automations trigger interface named:

• Kitchen keypad prev button pressed
• Kitchen keypad next button pressed
• Kitchen keypad play/pause button pressed

NOTE: The Nuvo only emits keypad button event messages (and thus the Home Assistant keypad triggers will only fire) when the currently selected Source for a Zone is configured as a Non-Nuvonet source. As of now there is no way to configure the source type through the Home Assistant integration. Use the nuvo-serial Python library or the Windows-based Nuvo Configurator software.

Lovelace Frontend Configuration

Everything in this section is optional and shows a heavily opinionated method of configuring Lovelace to display the Nuvo entities. While it may not be to everyones taste, it should at least give some inspiration for configuration possibilites.

The core Media Player integration (and therefore any Lovelace media control card representing a media player entity) does not provide a way to control a media device's EQ settings. Each EQ setting is modeled using the Number integration. The advantage of this is the ability to use the native number ranges exposed by the Nuvo for each control rather than a card showing a generic 0-X scale.

While Home Assistant will auto-create Lovelace media control and number cards for each Nuvo entity, a more polished look can be achieved using third-party cards mini-media-player and lovelace-slider-entity-row, both cards are installable through HACS.

This example Lovelace configuration displays the EQ settings in a Conditional card that is only displayed when the zone is switched on and an input_boolean entity is True. This input_boolean is toggled by tapping the mini-media-player representing the zone. In order to achieve this, an additional input_boolean entity per-zone needs manually created (it's purely to control the frontend EQ Conditional card, it doesn't represent anything on the Nuvo itself).

e.g. In configuration.yaml:

input_boolean:
  eq_office:
    name: Office EQ
    initial: off
  eq_kitchen:
    name: Kitchen EQ
    initial: off

Will create the entities:

input_boolean.eq_office
input_boolean.eq_kitchen

As shown the yaml section below, the tap action on each mini-media-player will call the input_boolean.toggle service.

Example section in ui-lovelace.yaml:

views:
  - title: MusicZones
    cards:
      - type: vertical-stack
        cards:
          - type: entities
            entities:
              - type: custom:mini-media-player
                entity: media_player.office
                group: true
                hide:
                  controls: false
                  info: true
                  power_state: false
                  play_pause: true
                  prev: true
                  next: true
                icon: mdi:speaker-wireless
                volume_stateless: true
                tap_action:
                  action: call-service
                  service: input_boolean.toggle
                  service_data:
                    entity_id: input_boolean.eq_office

              - type: custom:slider-entity-row
                entity: media_player.office
                full_row: true
                step: 1
                hide_state: false
                hide_when_off: true

          - type: conditional
            conditions:
              - entity: media_player.office
                state: "on"
              - entity: input_boolean.eq_office
                state: "on"
            card:
              type: entities
              entities:
                - type: custom:slider-entity-row
                  entity: number.office_bass
                  name: Bass
                  icon: mdi:music-clef-bass
                  hide_state: false
                  hide_when_off: true
                  full_row: false

                - type: custom:slider-entity-row
                  entity: number.office_treble
                  full_row: false
                  name: Treble
                  icon: mdi:music-clef-treble
                  hide_state: false
                  hide_when_off: true

                - type: custom:slider-entity-row
                  entity: number.office_balance
                  full_row: false
                  name: Balance
                  hide_state: false
                  hide_when_off: true

                - entity: switch.office_loudcmp
                  name: LoudComp
                  show_state: true

                - type: custom:slider-entity-row
                  entity: number.office_volume_max
                  full_row: false
                  name: Volume Max
                  hide_state: false
                  hide_when_off: true
                  icon: mdi:tune

                - type: custom:slider-entity-row
                  entity: number.office_volume_initial
                  full_row: false
                  name: Volume Initial
                  hide_state: false
                  hide_when_off: true
                  icon: mdi:tune

                - type: custom:slider-entity-row
                  entity: number.office_volume_page
                  full_row: false
                  name: Volume Page
                  hide_state: false
                  hide_when_off: true
                  icon: mdi:tune

                - type: custom:slider-entity-row
                  entity: number.office_volume_party
                  full_row: false
                  name: Volume Party
                  hide_state: false
                  hide_when_off: true
                  icon: mdi:tune

                - entity: switch.office_volume_reset
                  name: Volume Reset
                  show_state: true

          - type: entities
            entities:
              - type: custom:mini-media-player
                entity: media_player.kitchen
                group: true
                hide:
                  controls: false
                  info: true
                  power_state: false
                  play_pause: true
                  prev: true
                  next: true
                icon: mdi:speaker-wireless
                volume_stateless: true
                tap_action:
                  action: call-service
                  service: input_boolean.toggle
                  service_data:
                    entity_id: input_boolean.eq_kitchen

              - type: custom:slider-entity-row
                entity: media_player.kitchen
                full_row: true
                step: 1
                hide_state: false
                hide_when_off: true

          - type: conditional
            conditions:
              - entity: media_player.kitchen
                state: "on"
              - entity: input_boolean.eq_kitchen
                state: "on"
            card:
              type: entities
              entities:
                - type: custom:slider-entity-row
                  entity: number.kitchen_bass
                  name: Bass
                  icon: mdi:music-clef-bass
                  hide_state: false
                  hide_when_off: true
                  full_row: false

                - type: custom:slider-entity-row
                  entity: number.kitchen_treble
                  full_row: false
                  name: Treble
                  icon: mdi:music-clef-treble
                  hide_state: false
                  hide_when_off: true

                - type: custom:slider-entity-row
                  entity: number.kitchen_balance
                  full_row: false
                  name: Balance
                  hide_state: false
                  hide_when_off: true

                - entity: switch.kitchen_loudcmp
                  name: LoudComp
                  show_state: true

                - type: custom:slider-entity-row
                  entity: number.kitchen_volume_max
                  full_row: false
                  name: Volume Max
                  hide_state: false
                  hide_when_off: true
                  icon: mdi:tune

                - type: custom:slider-entity-row
                  entity: number.kitchen_volume_initial
                  full_row: false
                  name: Volume Initial
                  hide_state: false
                  hide_when_off: true
                  icon: mdi:tune

                - type: custom:slider-entity-row
                  entity: number.kitchen_volume_page
                  full_row: false
                  name: Volume Page
                  hide_state: false
                  hide_when_off: true
                  icon: mdi:tune

                - type: custom:slider-entity-row
                  entity: number.kitchen_volume_party
                  full_row: false
                  name: Volume Party
                  hide_state: false
                  hide_when_off: true
                  icon: mdi:tune

                - entity: switch.kitchen_volume_reset
                  name: Volume Reset
                  show_state: true

This configuration will display the cards below, with the EQ settings card toggled by tapping on the media player, in any area not containing a control: