Kodi and Home Assistant Showcase 'Poor Man's TV': Users Scrap Expensive Sticks for Custom Media Overhaul
The core demand is a stable, continuous, scheduled playback system for personal media that mimics traditional TV channel surfing.
The community split around the best tools for this. 'fleem' pushed for a Kodi/Jellyfin/Home Assistant stack, calling it a 'poor man's channels' solution. Others flagged the utility of ErsatzTV, though 'GalacticHero' pointed out it is unmaintained. Meanwhile, 'spaghettiwestern' warned against Roku, citing alleged corporate 'enshittification' and excess ads, despite admitting the Jellyfin app still works.
The consensus favors highly customized, local solutions. The clearest path involves combining Kodi with advanced automation like Home Assistant, while specific workarounds, like mapping channel buttons to skip functions, are being explored to achieve the necessary immersive feel.
Key Points
Kodi integrated with Home Assistant allows for programmed channel flow.
'fleem' detailed using smart playlists based on playcount rules within this setup.
ErsatzTV is useful but unsupported.
'CmdrShepard49' confirmed its ability to mix content types, but 'GalacticHero' noted it is unmaintained.
Roku devices should be avoided.
'spaghettiwestern' explicitly warned against Roku due to alleged corporate 'enshittification'.
Mini PCs are the suggested hardware replacement.
'cmnybo' recommended using a mini PC connected to a wireless keyboard and mouse to replace FireTV Sticks.
Advanced automation offers immersive control.
The idea of mapping Home Assistant buttons to 'skip forward/skip previous' functions was cited as a key workaround.
Source Discussions (3)
This report was synthesized from the following Lemmy discussions, ranked by community score.