I did when it came out, and it sucked. First you have to “start it” saying something like “ok Google start Emby” then ask for your content. It would then ask you to choose the client you want to play the content on from a list of 4 or 5 clients it chose, with very technical names for then that you can’t change to friendlier, and the devices I use the most weren’t on the list… And it would have to read that list to me first so that id pick from it…
So getting something start would be a 90 second thing and in the end I couldn’t play it on the device I wanted.
It was the first and last time I tried it, so full disclosure or could be better now, but no announcements were made about any updates for it
Because you typically say “ask [service] to [action]” or “talk to [service]” then you are passed directly to the Google Voice action “skill” that the developer has built, some services like Emby, Phlex etc - use reverse engineering of the cast protocol and have a server locally on your network. Chromecasts are discovered using mDNS which is well documented and obviously the Google Action can speak directly to the server on your network, at which point the Google Action can instruct the local server to do whatever it wants.
Netflix, BBC iPlayer, 4oD, Hulu, Google Play Movies, YouTube etc do not have a local server on your network, so the ability to discover your Chromecasts - has to be done in the cloud, which means accessing the list of Chromecasts that are attached to your Google Account. It is certainly possible that Plex could go down the emby route and require you to say “OK Google, ask Plex to…” and then use their plexdirect cloud system to instruct your Plex service to start a cast session on the local Chromecast, but that immediately reduces discoverability and makes it a second class service. And at some point Google will crack down on this abuse of the cast protocol, and I’m sure in the not too distant future - they will probably break all these hacky workarounds by adding extra handshaking or some form of verification. Why… because that’s what Google do.
The post from @treasurechest
(Google home integration) covers what we were discussing on some of the other threads. Flex TV works well just takes a little bit to get setup.
It doesn’t work for me. I’ve asked for a fix a few times but I’m still waiting. If you have more than one server on your account, it pretty much doesn’t work, it ends up posting the request to play the created playlist to the wrong Plex server (typically the first one listed that has the Chromecast plugin) - which results in the Chromecast app loading and then saying something went wrong - and the server returning a lot of errors because it’s being asked to play content that does not exist.
Just got my first google home, sadly there is no plex integration yet, as I’m having all my Music on Plex I would love to stream music from Plex as I don’t want to buy any of those suscriptions as I have all Music I want to listen to localy.
They are too busy on things like AR instead of giving us GH integration, or at least a simple way to NOT have images from a library showing in home screen (like horror movies posters while searching cartoons for my son)…
This is absurd… It’s almost 2019 and people have been requesting Google Home Integration since 2016! How hard is it to say something devs??? “Yes, It’s coming” or “No, it’s not” That’s all it takes. I don’t remember seeing people asking about news, podcast, DVR or even photos in PLEX, yet we have them. I know you can’t act on everything single request, but you can at least respond to the hundreds if not thousands of people who’ve asked about this. I payed for the Plex Pass years ago to support development, but I promise you this, because of this ■■■■■■ customer server, you will NEVER get another dime from me.
I’ve just moved from Amazon Echo and dot devices to Google Home. For me it was simple - I have an Android phone and I’m a heavy user of Google products…Email, Calendar, Photos, Drive, YouTube…I like that it’s all linked.
I’m equally a huge Plex fan which I run on the Nvidia Shield.
For me, installing Phlex isn’t an option - if I had Plex on a PC then I probably would…but on the Shield I can’t.
So, from my perspective I now have the smart assistant I want to use that integrates well with the rest of my online services. I have the media device I need to run the entertainment sources I want to watch and I have Plex to handle all of my own content.
The thing I don’t have is these 3 things working together…as I want them to…and as they should do…let’s be honest, as someone else pointed out - if Plex can spend time and effort putting a VR thing together that will only be of value to a small minority (and yes, I have personally tried it via various VR headsets), why not implement a feature that over the next 18 months will likely become a top request for the majority of their users?
With all of that said, the thing I simply don’t understand is why there is no response/update/timescale from Plex about this - I can’t even see a Dev response on this thread (granted I may have missed it as there are a LOT of comments).
Plex Devs…please reply with an ETA or some detail as to what the technical issues are that are blocking an update.
I’m sure they just have a signed agreement with Amazon to only have integration with them. When the agreement end date will pass, they will release it in a few days.
