The Home Assistant Companion app for Android is getting native media controls. A pull request merged on 12 October 2026 lets the app show selected media_player entities in Android's notification shade, using the same media panel that Spotify or YouTube Music use. You can pause a speaker in the kitchen or skip a track on the living room TV without opening the app or building a widget.
What it shows
The media control displays the current title, artist and artwork, plus playback progress. Play and pause, previous and next track and seeking are forwarded to the entity, but only when the media player supports them; unsupported buttons are hidden. The draft documentation also lists shuffle, repeat, mute and volume through Android's volume keys, again depending on the player. Tapping the control opens the entity's more-info dialog in the app, and the control also appears on the lock screen.
It shows while the player is playing, paused, buffering or idle, and hides when the player is off.
How to set it up
A new setting under Settings > Companion App > Media controls picks which players to expose. You can add several, and each gets its own notification. With more than one server configured, you first choose the server the player belongs to. Removing the last player turns the feature off.
The draft documentation notes one quirk: the output indicator in the corner of the control says "This phone", even though the audio plays on the media player. It also suggests comparing odd progress, shuffle or repeat states with the more-info dialog in Home Assistant before filing a bug, since the control only reflects what Home Assistant reports.
Who built it and when you get it
The feature is the first contribution to the Android app from Fletcher D, who opened the pull request in March. It was merged in October after review. Timothy (TimoPtr) followed up on the same day with a fix for loading artwork.
It is not in a released version yet. The newest Android app build on GitHub is the 2026.10.1 pre-release from 6 October, which predates the merge, and the latest stable build is 2026.8.4. Expect the controls in a beta first; the documentation marks the feature as beta.