Feature: Media is playing sensor

[ydyote]

Please make sure that the feature you'd like to request is not already requested :)

I looked it up, didn't find anything also when media is enabled then it doesn't show this kind of sensor

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Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

The problem would be that to be able to determine whether user of a pc is "active" the "lastactive" sensor is not enough, this sensor would be addition to that and combining "lastactive", "monitorpowerstate", "mediaisplaying" might be enough to be able to tell whether the pc is in use or not except some unique cases, but if I get to those then I will deal with those

Describe the solution you'd like

A sensor which shows true/false based on whether media is playing or not. It should not report more stuff so privacy of the user is ensured (or the sensor should be configurable)

Describe alternatives you've considered

Alternative solution would be writing it myself and create sensor which would call it via cmd

Additional context

This is a short example of C# code which seems to work if you build it for windows with .net8 to retrieve the playing state and other info, this can be adjusted and then used to determine whether media is playing or not

using Windows.Media.Control;

namespace HassSensorTest
{
    internal class GlobalSystemMediaTransportControlsTest
    {
        static async Task Main(string[] args)
        {
            var sessions = await GlobalSystemMediaTransportControlsSessionManager.RequestAsync();
            var currentSession = sessions.GetCurrentSession();

            if (currentSession == null)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("No media session is currently active.");
                return;
            }

            var mediaProperties = await currentSession.TryGetMediaPropertiesAsync();
            var playbackInfo = currentSession.GetPlaybackInfo();

            Console.WriteLine("App: " + currentSession.SourceAppUserModelId);
            Console.WriteLine("Title: " + mediaProperties.Title);
            Console.WriteLine("Artist: " + mediaProperties.Artist);
            Console.WriteLine("Album: " + mediaProperties.AlbumTitle);
            Console.WriteLine("Playback Status: " + playbackInfo.PlaybackStatus);
        }
    }
}

[amadeo-alex]

o/
Hmm, this is kind of achieved via the media player integration:

Via the media player state you can tell if something is being actively played.
Is the issue here that is shows the title of the content, including "private viewings" :D?

There is a PR that kind of attempts to do it but more in kill-it-all manner - #34 - if could be modified that the state is still reported but the title and other details are empty.

[ydyote]

it doesn't matter whether its "private viewing" or not, if it runs on somebodys pc and one broadcasts what that person does on it then its kinda anti-privacy whatever they are watching or listening to

I'm not sure even if you are able then use that device for automation. my guess then is that it has proper attributes (like status, title and so on) that you can use in automations? I cannot enable it right now to check

[amadeo-alex]

leaving privacy side topic, example of the media player:

assuming the title and others are cleared, does it fulfil your request?

[ydyote]

leaving privacy side topic, example of the media player:

assuming the title and others are cleared, does it fulfil your request?

which one of those entities would you use as "is_playing" flag (basically the PlaybackStatus from C#)?

binary sensor looking at media_position and if not empty then its playing?

[amadeo-alex]

The sensor's main value - on the example above it's "playing".

[ydyote]

oh my bad, then I guess it would be fine