anthemav 1.4.0b2

Python API for controlling Anthem Receivers

This is a Python package to interface with Anthem AVM and MRX receivers and processors. It uses the asyncio library to maintain an object-based connection to the network port of the receiver with supporting methods and properties to poll and adjust the receiver settings.

This package was created primarily to support an anthemav media_player platform for the Home Assistant automation platform but it is structured to be general-purpose and should be usable for other applications as well.

Important

This package will maintain a persistant connection to the network control port which will prevent any other application from communicating with the receiver. This includes the Anthem iOS and Android remote control app as well as the ARC-2 room calibration software. You will need to disable any application that is using the library in order to run those other applications.

Requirements

• Python 3.6 or newer with asyncio

• An Anthem MRX or AVM receiver or processor

Known Issues

• This has only been tested with an MRXx20 series receiver, although the Anthem protocol was largely unchanged from the MRXx10 series. It should work with the older units, but I’d appreciate feedback or pull requests if you encounter problems. It will definitely not work with the original MRXx00 units or the D2v models.

• Only Zone 1 is currently supported. If you have other zones configured, this library will not allow you to inspect or control them. This is not an intractable problem, I just chose not to address that nuance in this initial release. It’s certainly feasible to add support but I am not settled on how that should be exposed in the internal API of the package.

• I skipped over a lot of the more esoteric settings that are available (like toggling Dolby Volume on each input). If I passed over a setting that’s really important to you, please let me know and I’ll be happy to add support for it. Eventually I intend to cover the full scope of the Anthem API, but you know how it goes.

Installation

You can, of course, just install the most recent release of this package using pip. This will download the more rececnt version from PyPI and install it to your host.

pip install anthemav

If you want to grab the the development code, you can also clone this git repository and install from local sources:

cd python-anthemav
pip install .

And, as you probably expect, you can live the developer’s life by working with the live repo and edit to your heart’s content:

cd python-anthemav
pip install . -e

Testing

The package installs a command-line tool which will connect to your receiver, power it up, and then monitor all activity and changes that take place. The code for this console monitor is in anthemav/tools.py and you can invoke it by simply running this at the command line with the appropriate IP and port number that matches your receiver and its configured port:

anthemav_monitor --host 10.0.0.100 --port 14999

Helpful Commands

sudo tcpflow -c port 14999

Interesting Links

• Project Home

• API Documentation for Anthem Network Protocol (Excel Spreadsheet):

  • MRX-x20 and AVM-60

  • MRX-x40, AVM-70 and AVM-90

• Pictures of cats

Credits

• This package was written by David McNett.

  • https://github.com/nugget

  • https://keybase.io/nugget

• This package is maintained by Alex Henry

  • https://github.com/hyralex

How can you help?

• First and foremost, you can help by forking this project and coding. Features, bug fixes, documentation, and sample code will all add tremendously to the quality of this project.

• If you have a feature you’d love to see added to the project but you don’t think that you’re able to do the work, I’m someone is probably happy to perform the directed development in the form of a bug or feature bounty.

• If you’re anxious for a feature but it’s not actually worth money to you, please open an issue here on Github describing the problem or limitation. If you never ask, it’ll never happen

• If you just want to thank me for the work I’ve already done, I’m happy to accept your thanks, gratitude, pizza, or bitcoin. My bitcoin wallet address can be on Keybase or you can send me a donation via PayPal.

• Or, if you’re not comfortable sending me money directly, I’ll be nearly as thrilled (really) if you donate to the ACLU, EFF, or EPIC and let me know that you did.