Smart home

Holix Play for Home Assistant

A local integration that turns each Holix Play device into a Home Assistant device: playback state and events are pushed instantly, and you can control playback, profiles and Ambilight from your automations. No cloud, and nothing to type into the app.

The integration is released (v0.1.0). Holix Play itself is not in the stores yet; it will work once the app is released.

View on GitHub

Requirements

  • Home Assistant 2025.2 or newer, with HACS for the easy install.
  • Holix Play and Home Assistant on the same network, with mDNS (zeroconf) not blocked.

Install with HACS

  1. In HACS open the ⋮ menu → Custom repositories.
  2. Add https://github.com/HolixPlay/holix-homeassistant with category Integration.
  3. Search for Holix Play in HACS and download it.
  4. Restart Home Assistant.

Manual install: copy custom_components/holix from the repository into your Home Assistant custom_components folder and restart.

Pair

  1. Open Holix Play on the TV or device and keep it in the foreground.
  2. Home Assistant shows it under Settings → Devices & services as discovered. Choose Add. If it is not discovered, add the Holix Play integration and enter the device's IP address.
  3. Enter the 6-digit PIN shown on the screen.

Each device is paired separately. Removing the pairing in the app asks Home Assistant to pair again.

What you get

EntityWhat it does
Media playerState, title and artwork, position; play, pause, stop, seek, next and previous. Shows off while the app is closed or in the background.
SensorsActive profile, content type, dynamic range (SDR, HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, HLG), media segment (intro, credits…), resolution and audio format.
Binary sensorsHDR active; screensaver on.
Profile selectSwitch profile (PIN-protected profiles cannot be selected).
Ambilight lightHolix Ambilight on/off and brightness.
EventPlayback started, paused, resumed, stopped; intro/credits started and ended; profile changed; screensaver started and stopped. Also available as device triggers.
RemoteIn-app navigation keys: arrows, select, back, home, menu, play/pause.

Plus a holix.show_notification action that shows a message on screen (for example the doorbell) without stopping playback, and an option to let selected Home Assistant lights follow the picture as a soft ambient effect. For real-time Ambilight, connect your lights to Holix Play directly.

Example: dim the lights for a movie

automation:
  - alias: Movie starts — dim lights
    trigger:
      - platform: state
        entity_id: event.living_room_apple_tv_playback
    condition:
      - condition: template
        value_template: >
          {{ trigger.to_state.attributes.event_type == 'playback_started'
             and states('sensor.living_room_apple_tv_media_type') == 'movie' }}
    action:
      - service: light.turn_on
        target: {entity_id: light.living_room}
        data: {brightness_pct: 10, transition: 3}

Troubleshooting

  • Not discovered: keep Holix Play open in the foreground, on the same network or VLAN as Home Assistant; or add it by IP address.
  • Media player is off: expected while the app is closed or in the background; it reconnects automatically.
  • Volume controls missing: on Apple TV the app does not control volume; use your TV or receiver integration.

Bugs and feature requests: GitHub issues. Other questions: [email protected].