[Tasker] Capture Title of Chromecast Media

🛎️ Get Help Apps
1

Is there any way to get more detail about the source being cast to a chromecast? When I cast from an app on my phone the media source in HE shows as the app, but I would like to also see the name of what is being cast, e.g. the show.

2

Looks like this will be possible with autonotifications and AutoRemote and tasker, details to follow when I figure out the details for setting this up....

3

The rough explanation on how I achieved this is:

  1. Create a new Virtual Device using my Generic Attribute Driver, adding this to a Maker API App install, copying / noting the Send Command URL and Device Id
  2. Install Tasker and AutoNotifications on the source devices such as mobile phones and tablets (pretty sure Tasker platform is Android only...)
  3. Create a new Profile, Event, Plugin, AutoNotification, Intercept
  4. Apply the following Configuration settings for the AutoNotifications Event
    a. Action (Notification) Type = Only Created Notifications
    b. Persistency Type = Persistent Only
    c. Has Media Session = True (Ticked)
  5. Add a Task to perform a HTTP Request, pasting in the Send Command URL, replacing the Device Id, setStringAttribute as the command and the parameter as %antitle (this %antitle variable, amongst others, is available automatically by having used the AutoNotification plugin for the Event trigger)
  6. If there is more than one cast device available in the home, include an IF condition in the Task, restricting on the %antext OR %ansubtext variable values, e.g. %antext Matches *Living Chromecast OR %ansubtext Matches *Living Chromecast

Test by casting a Youtube clip to the chromecast and reviewing the stringAttribute on the Virtual Device on the HE hub.

I then also setup an RM rule to reset the stringAttribute, triggered by a change in the custom attribute mediaSource on the Chromecast device in HE, running a conditional action IF the mediaSource custom attribute = "None", THEN run a custom action setStringAttribute on the Virtual Device, passing in a space (" ").

I would like to make this a much easier setup, but just happy to get something working for now. Developing an App for things like this and other Tasker setups, including importing profiles, etc, would be a nice little project one day.