I have a great music library on my homelab, but I hardly ever listen to it because I mostly listen to music on my TV.
I occasionally use the Jellyfin app, which is the best player I’ve found for TV, but it is not really built for audio and is cumbersome for searching, on-the-fly playlist, and continuous play.
Other apps I’ve tried are either worse in terms of features, or an absolute labyrinth to navigate with a remote. Most apps are designed for mobile and are somewhat to completely broken on TV, if they run at all.
I don’t mind if the app is not free as long as it works well enough for my family to use it, and it connects to the server. I don’t mind migrating my library to another service to get it working well on the TV.
Has anyone found an actually good Android TV app for hosted music?
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Yeah I wish I had an Android TV app to play my navidrome music library
FinAmp is a fantastic JellyFin music player, and even supports offline downloads for on the road. Sadly the interface isn’t really AndroidTV-friendly, but it works great on android touch screens, iOS, linux, and macOS (probably Windows too, but I’ll never know).
I’m looking for a good AndroidTV player as well, because the official JellyFin app doesn’t background well. We like to play music in parallel with a screensaver or fireplace app, but JellyFin pauses after about a minute when hackgrounded.
If you already have the music loaded on Jellyfin, try sideloading Finamp on it. I don’t think they have a specific TV ui but it may do what you need
Currently also using Jellyfin. I’m interested if someone shares something else. 😁
I’ve been using Plex for years and switched everything to Jellyfin and Lyrion, both working from the same media files.
Lyrion is great for synced playback throughout the appartment. When I’m only playing via the flat TV for a few songs, I generally use Jellyfin.
Is it essential for you that you can use the TV for controlling the playback?
I’d be interested in hearing about your lyrion setup. I haven’t really tried it but it looks like that could open a whole software ecosystem. Do you use a phone app to select/skip/cue tracks?
It doesn’t necessarily have to be controlled by the TV remote, but it does need to be controlled away from the server.
@gedaliyah You can either use the server’s web interface or check out a number of apps for iOS or Android.
So if I understand correctly, you open the app or web on your phone, and it controls what’s playing on the TV via the server?
@gedaliyah You need a player, either in hard- or software.
I have a Pi 3 with a DAC-Hat connected to my stereo and two add’l Squeezeboxes.
@gedaliyah support.symfonium.app/t/symfon…
This is what I use on my phone, and it’s a great app. Even supports reading rating tags, though it can’t write to them due to Android limitations. It was a one-time payment of under $10 when I got it, and that blog post says they at least have an experimental build for Android TVs. Mostly why I picked it was:
- Smart playlists
- Rating tag support
It also has WebDAV support, but I just sync the music to my phone.
Symfonium is really great, but the TV version doesn’t quite work —or didn’t as of my testing probably a year ago.
I have also stopped using GMS, which makes using paid apps more difficult.
One thing that I really enjoyed was the Android Auto mode, which was flawless.
I’m using Kodi to put on endless playlists. Mostly for our pets when we’re away. It’s nothing fancy, but works fine. “Party Mode” is their on the fly playlist. Once in a genre/artist, you tap left and a small menu shows it. Two clicks and it plays an endless medley of tunes.
@PancakesCantKillMe @gedaliyah Okay, you’ve piqued my curiosity. What does your playlist for pets look like?
Nothing unusual, really. I typically put on classical music, but oft times am in a hurry and Kodi will sit and churn on a genre, so the quick pick is everything including podcasts. If a podcast is going upon our return, I ask them what they’ve learned.
Otuside of the already mentioned Kodi, Jellyfin/Plex, the only other decent ones I’m aware of are VLC & Foobar2000
