Plex Alexa skill doesn’t recognise WiiM as a player

[Steev_jo]

Trying to find a way to get voice control to pause/resume playback from NAS via plex.
Alexa is all set up and works fine to play music from Amazon Music but does nothing if playing from NAS.
I use plex to access the NAS library so tried the Alexa plex skill - it loaded ok and found my server and two macs running plexamp but doesn’t see the WiiM amp.

Is there any way to pause and resume playback from NAS? I’m out of ideas. This is the only thing I miss about the Sonos speakers the WiiM amp replaced. Happy to look at plex alternatives if it will get me voice control.

Thanks.

 

[Burnside]

Have you tried setting the WiiM as preferred speaker in an Alexa device/room group and then asking an echo in the group to play using the plex skill? Hopefully that will default the skill audio to play indirectly to the WiiM. I know that method has been used in the past to get skills like MyMedia to play on Alexa multi room music groups.

Set Your WiiM Device as the Alexa Preferred Speaker

Using Alexa to play music through WiiM device and Echo is convenient. However, you must specify a device by name each time you want to play music. To simplify your experience, configure your WiiM device as the Alexa preferred speaker in the Alexa...

faq.wiimhome.com

 

[Steev_jo]

Yes, the WiiM is the default speaker - Alexa is quite happy to play Amazon music on the WiiM amp - asking via an echo.
The plex skill doesn’t seem to know about the WiiM amp - it only finds our two macs which both run plexamp.

 

[Burnside]

The plex skill won’t know about the WiiM as it’s not a Plexamp endpoint, but it shouldn’t need to as preferred speaker.

If you make another echo preferred speaker, does that play ok?

 

[Burnside]

What format are the files you’re trying to play? Does the plex skill have any restrictions e.g. it only plays mp3 not flac, for example?

 

[Burnside]

Also, have you tried changing the name of your WiiM device in the app to something easy like “puck” and asking “Alexa, ask Plex to play music by Adele on Puck”?

 

[Burnside]

This old post suggests you should be able to play to a WiiM device using the plex Alexa skill\

R

Thread 'WiiM mini and Alexa Plex Skills Integration'

Dec 4, 2023

Hi,
I'm using WiiM mini connected to my Onkyo receiver along with Tidal Connect and Amazon Alexa integration.
Also I have a large library of music specifically FLAC/MQA files managed on a Plex Media Server.
I understand there's an upcoming integration with plex which I'm so waiting for but I'm submitting this post for another issue that I'm facing.

I have integrated Plex skills on Amazon Alexa where I play my library using voice commands (ie Alexa, ask plex to play ....) on my echo speakers.
So far I've been able to Direct Play my FLAC contents on echo speakers with no issues. Specially...

• Rockstar2020
• Replies: 26
• Forum: Feature Requests for WiiM Mini

 

[Steev_jo]

Thanks for your help. I think I know what’s going on now - it’s irritatingly close to being useful.

The plex skill works and will play from the NAS via the WiiM amp “Alexa ask plex to play Neil young” works. Alexa ask plex to pause and resume works. Alexa stop and play works. Great.

Browse, select and start the playback from the plex service in the WiiM home app and pause/resume and stop/start don’t work. Not so great.

Enough for today.

 

[Burnside]

Browse, select and start the playback from the plex service in the WiiM home app and pause/resume and stop/start don’t work. Not so great.

Yeah, turning in here too.

If you mean the bits that don’t work are via Alexa, I guess that’s not surprising as it’s not playing the music so is unaware that a stream has been initiated by the WiiM app. Anyway, as you say, something for tomorrow. Cheers

 

[Steev_jo]

Right, I'm moving on - don't enjoy faffing around when it's not clear if something should work or not. The plex skill works fine to control playback if you only use the plex skill - really cool that I can ask for a specific album and have it play - but my use case is browsing and choosing an album on the wiim app. I'd like to be able to then stop and start playback with voice control and the plex skill only works if it has started the playback.

Understand local libraries aren't mainstream any more. I'm guessing this needs an Alexa wiim skill which, unfortunately for me, doesn't exist - came from sonos land where this was one thing that actually did just work.

Never mind.

 

[Burnside]

Right, I'm moving on - don't enjoy faffing around when it's not clear if something should work or not. The plex skill works fine to control playback if you only use the plex skill - really cool that I can ask for a specific album and have it play - but my use case is browsing and choosing an album on the wiim app. I'd like to be able to then stop and start playback with voice control and the plex skill only works if it has started the playback.

Understand local libraries aren't mainstream any more. I'm guessing this needs an Alexa wiim skill which, unfortunately for me, doesn't exist - came from sonos land where this was one thing that actually did just work.

Never mind.

Unfortunately in Alexa terms you’re not comparing like for like. The Sonos devices are third party and supported by a skill, but that comes with restrictions like not being able to have them in multi room music groups along with echos, and also having their Alexa playback audio resolution restricted. WiiM devices only support the other hand are developed to emulate echos using the Alexa MRM SDK, and as such I don’t think you can create an Alexa skill to control them in the same manner.

Personally, I would use voice control to select and initiate music from Plex, and reach for the remote to pause/resume/skip playback…