Control Kodi through your Google Home / Google Assistant

What it can do

Follow these steps to easily control your kodi using simple voice commands with your Google Home or Google assistant:

Play a movie:

"Hey Google, kodi play movie [movie name]" --> will search for the given movie name and play it.

Play next unwatched episode:

"Hey Google, kodi play tv show [tv show name]" --> will search for the given tv show and play the next unwatched episode.

Pause / Resume kodi:

"Hey Google, pause kodi"

Stop kodi:

"Hey Google, stop kodi"

How to setup

Disclaimer: Use on your own risk and choose complex username & password in the below steps.

A) Enable webserver access in kodi

In Kodi, go to Settings >> Web server
Set Allow remote contorl via HTTP to On
Choose a port number (e.g. 8080)
Choose a username and password (Important!)
Configure your router to forward the port your selected to your kodi device
Find your external IP address (i.e. Google 'what's my ip?')

B) Set up a webserver in Glitch to control your kodi

Go to Glitch.com and sign in with your github user
Create a new Glitch project and under advance settings choose Import from GitHub
Enter this project OmerTu/GoogleHomeKodi
Change Glitch project settings to private (under advance settings)
Edit the .env file in your Glitch project with the following settings:

KODI_IP="YOUR_EXTERNAL_IP_ADDRESS"
KODI_PORT="YOUR_KODI_PORT"
KODI_USER="YOUR_KODI_USER_NAME"
KODI_PASSWORD="YOUR_KODI_PASSWORD"
AUTH_TOKEN="YOUR_CONNECTION_PASSWORD"

YOUR_CONNECTION_PASSWORD can be anything you want.

Check your Glitch server address by choosing 'Show Live' on the top left. A new tab with your server will open. Note your server address in the address bar.

C) Set up IFTTT with your Google Home

Go to IFTTT
Create a new applet: if This then That
For This choose: Google Assistance
1. Choose Say a phrase with a text ingredient
2. In What do you want to say? enter something like:
Kodi play movie $
1. In What do you want the Assistant to say in response? enter something like:
ok playing $ movie
For That choose: Maker Webhooks
1. Choose Make a web request
2. In URL enter:
YOUR_GLITCH_SERVER_ADDRESS/playmovie?q= {{TextField}}

For example, if your glitch server address is 'green-icecream.glitch.me', your should enter:

https://green-icecream.glitch.me/playmovie?q= {{TextField}}
1. Method: Get
2. Content Type: application/json
3. Body:
{"token":"YOUR_CONNECTION_PASSWORD"}

Now every time you say "Hey Google, Kodi play movie bla bla", it should play bla bla on your kodi.

Note: If your external IP changes, this will stop working (consider getting a static IP address)

Setting up other actions:

For Tv show support, follow all the steps in C, except choose a different phrase (e.g. "Kodi play an episode of $") and use this URL:

YOUR_GLITCH_SERVER_ADDRESS/playtvshow?q= {{TextField}}

To pause or resume kodi follow the instructions in C but choose "Say a simple phrase" in step 3 and use this URL:

YOUR_GLITCH_SERVER_ADDRESS/playpause

To Stop kodi, follow the same instructions as pause but use this URL:

YOUR_GLITCH_SERVER_ADDRESS/stop

Credits

I used some code from these 2 projects: https://github.com/MarvinSchenkel/HomeyKodi https://github.com/Jephuff/kodi-rpc

And this wonderful website makes setting this up super easy - Glitch (https://glitch.com/about)

bletnieehjom / GoogleHomeKodi