Advanced Background Settings and Premium Album Art Tile

[James]

Can you go to https://graph.api.smartthings.com/ and verify if the Echo Speak device is getting the audioTrakData correctly when you play some music? (Login with your SmartThings credential, go to “My Locations”, selected the correct location, and go to “My Devices” tab, and click on the Echo Speak device you are working on.)

If the audio data shows correctly in ST, then verify if the data is sent over to SharpTools.io by going to the user page. In the “Authorized Locations” list, tap the “…” next to your ST location, and tap the Echo Speak device in the Things list, and you should see the AudioTrackData displayed in the black text, if you have added it to any dashboard (so it is subscribed).

Troubleshooting Tips:

1. If you don’t see AudioTrackData in ST IDE device page, update the DTH so it supports AudioTrackData capability

2. If is shown in ST IDE, but not the SharpTools device page, re-authorize the device to SharpTools

3. Play music from Spotify or Amazon Music for few seconds and verify if the AudioTrackData (or any attribute) is updating in ST IDE. If not, check the Echo Speak Server, and it may need an update.

   Note: it may take 2-3 seconds before the audio data is sent from Echo to SmarThings/SharpTools.

[Brandon_Green]

So this must be my issue, I do not see audio track data even listed. So how do I update the dth if I already have the latest version of echo speaks?

[James]

@Brandon_Green, you can go to SmartThings IDE site, “My Device Handlers” tab, select “Echo Speaks Device” to review the DTH currently used, and it should looks like the screenshot below.

If you want to update the DTH, copy everything from the link below, paste it to the DTH view we saw earlier, hit Save, and Publish.
Echo Speaks DTH

You can also verify the Echo Speaks version from the classic app → Automation → Echo Speaks

And don’t forget to authorize it to SharpTools.io again after you verify the AudioTrackData state shows up in ST device page.

[Brandon_Green]

I updated the code from the link you sent, re-authorized, and still not working. The code you sent was for version 3.2.0.3, was it supposed to be for 3.5.0.0 instead? Here is what echo speaks looks like now in my classic smartthings app.

[Brandon_Green]

Ok so I ended up getting the version 3.5.0.0 device handler code from the echo speaks documentation, re-authorized, and I’m seeing album art and track info now. Thank you so much for steering me in the right direction. I’m excited to start fine tuning these panels now.

[James]

@Brandon_Green, glad you got it working, and don’t forget to share your dashboard design in the Show off your SharpTools dashboards thread when it’s done.

[Alex_Camenzuli]

Hi guys. I have added the album art feature but at the bottom of the control tile the track description is not updating. It seems to be stuck on the first preset that I used.

[josh]

Welcome to the community and thanks for posting, @Alex_Camenzuli! Just to confirm, you’re referring to the track information shown at the bottom of the Music Player tile as indicated by the red arrow in the following screenshot, right?

What type of device is this (eg. Sonos, Echo Speaks) and is it on Hubitat or SmartThings? Have you tried verifying directly in SmartThings/Hubitat that the trackDescription attribute is updating as expected?

[Alex_Camenzuli]

Hi @josh thanks for your reply.

Yes that is what I am referring too. So the device is a Sonos speaker and connected to a Smartthings hub.

When chekcing on the smartthings IDE it is still showing as the first preset I used. It doesn’t seem to be updating.

Even the mediaSource seems to be stuck

[josh]

Thanks for the update. It sounds like the device or its integration with SmartThings may be having issues.

I don’t know if it’s a factor or not with SmartThings’ Sonos integration, but you might consider assigning the device a static IP address from your router if you can. Then you can try running device discovery in SmartThings again and see if it repairs the connection with the Sonos device. If it doesn’t then you might try removing and readding the device in SmartThings (and then reauthorizing it in SharpTools).

If that doesn’t help, you might try posting on the SmartThings community or reaching out to SmartThings support to see if they have any ideas as it sounds like the device state fundamentally isn’t updating.

[Andrew_Taylor]

Trying to get this Album art tile working and have read through the forum and can’t find a duplicate scenario.

I’m using smartthings with Echo speaks playing spotify.

Echo Speaks is updated and I can see the song title in the standard music player tile layout. When I switch it to the Album art tile layout, I don’t see a song title at all, therefore, no album art either, just the indication that it is playing. I’ve attached a screenshot to hopefully help.

[josh]

Hi Andrew - welcome to the community and thanks for posting! What version of the Echo Speaks device handler code are you running?

[Andrew_Taylor]

String devVersion() { return “3.6.2.0” }

[josh]

Thanks for the confirmation. I sent you a PM to see if we can gather some more details and figure out what’s going on.

Edit: Reauthorizing the devices got things working again.

[eibyer]

Is there a way that the opacity will apply to tiles where the background color was customized?

[josh]

I’m not sure I follow. Do you mean when you set a default set of colors at the dashboard level and then individually customize the color of a tile?

If so, you can choose one of the semi transparent colors for the tile.

[Gary_Tomkinson]

Hey folks, just curious if I’m missing something here but the album art shows the headphones icon and text through the station art when the station uses a transparent PNG file. Is there a way to control the background of the album art so that the default headphone icon and text are not displayed when the tile is live?

Same question for the text above the tile showing the Echo device it’s being played from.

Thanks! Gary

[josh]

Hi Gary! Welcome to the community and thanks for posting.

Let me see if I can reproduce this and see if we can improve the experience. It looks like you’re playing a radio station which is returning a semi-transparent image for the album art rather than more traditional full bleed artwork. I’ll let you know what I find.

[Gary_Tomkinson]

Thanks Josh! Most of the stations from iHeartRadio seem to use the transparent images. I also use XM Radio and it too uses transparent files but those usually end up with a white background.