Playing Music From a ST Routine? (2023)

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A community member asked a general question in another thread about playing music. It was later determined that they had a galaxy phone and wanted to play the music on that phone, which offers additional options through Bixby routines. So I have split the topic, and this one is now just on the general question. the galaxy question and Bixby answer are in another thread.

Automating music on a Galaxy Phone with an ST Trigger? (2023)

It’s pretty easy to trigger music to play on a $49.99 echo dot using Alexa routines if that’s of any interest. We do that at our house for various use cases.

(These screenshots are from the Alexa app, not the SmartThings app.)

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I expect there’s something similar for Google home, but I don’t know for sure.

As far as doing something on your android phone, I would think some combination of Tasker and Sharptools might do it, but again, I don’t know for sure.

Hopefully others will post the details of what they are using now. For me, Alexa has been a good solution. :notes:

@joshua_lyon

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What do you mean by “keep it in house”? Are you using a Samsung smart speaker?

FWIW, the Ikea Symfonisk speakers are reasonably affordable and work with the Sonos integration with SmartThings.

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Here’s an easy to setup example using a $100 IKEA Symfonisk speaker

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ok then you need to tell us what smart speakers you are trying to achieve this magical feat with…

It’s a capability of the Sonos integration

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Your post said you didn’t want to have “great expense” but you didn’t specify a budget. So that’s why I mentioned the solution we use, which does require a $50 echo Dot (often on sale for $35). It’s a quick and pretty easy solution.

SPEAKER CAPABILITIES

But if you really don’t want to buy anything extra, the issue you’ll run into is that playing music usually requires both the ability to set up a rule in smartthings, and a speaker device which has “play music” options. Different speaker devices have different options in this regard. Sonos, Echo, and IKEA Symfonisk all have some options, but somewhat different ones.

And there’s no easy way that I know of to have the official smartthings features play music on your android phone, unless you use Bixby routines on a galaxy phone, and you didn’t say you had a galaxy phone.

So then you have to start looking at third-party apps, which is why I mentioned the combination of Sharptools and Tasker. Both of those are paid license apps, so they may be outside of your budget as well.

SHORT ANSWER

If you have a Samsung galaxy phone, you can probably do this with a Bixby routine without needing anything extra. The music will play on your phone.

Otherwise, the easiest way to do this is to get a speaker device which has play music capabilities that smartthings can access.

Alexa dot is probably the least expensive simple option, often on sale for $35, and then you don’t need to buy anything else.

IKEA Symfonisk is a $100 device with better sound and more direct integration with the smartthings app, so for people who want a better quality speaker, it’s a popular choice.

And as you mentioned, Sonos has a direct integration and lots of options, but is very expensive. I think the least expensive model is about $350.

If you don’t want to buy any speaker device and just have the music play on your phone, then there isn’t anything built into the official smartthings features that will do this for non-galaxy phones. There are still ways to do it, but it sounds like they would feel too complicated for what you want.

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