Sorry to read that you sent your Muse back, this is a known bug in the media player in HA, this is a work in progress and the HA is working hard to stabilize it all. We just have to be patient.
Will also return my two ESP Muse Luxe. I’ve been having the same issue on both for the past month. Unbelievable how you sell a product like this!!!
Any developments on this?
I got my ESP Muse Luxe last week, and I was very excited being able to use it out of the box in my Home Assistant instance.
Unfortunately my excitement didn’t last long 
The first firmware I tried was ESPHome one. It installed just fine and worked, but with really annoying issues:
- At the start of sound it would emit really annoying static popping sound.
- It was crashing all the time, and most of the time notifications from Home Assistant wouldn’t go through, and I had to manually restart it.
Then I tried Squeezelite firmware hoping to have better luck with SlimProto integration, but it is even worse: popping sound is here as well (telling me this issue is hardware related) while notifications don’t work at all. I only managed to start Radio station once after re-trying many many times.
I sort of knew what I was going into, so I will not return this product (I’ll try to rip ESP32 board from it and use it elsewhere), but it would be great if you really warned people that this is testing board, not fully developed, just to avoid ruining your brand and having units returned. I surely won’t purchase anything that comes from Raspiaudio.
Hello,
Thank you for sharing your experience with the ESP Muse Luxe. I understand your frustration, but I’d like to assure you that the Luxe is more than just a development board. It serves as a reliable daily device for many, functioning as a radio or voice assistant.
It’s important to note that support requests typically come from a small fraction of users encountering issues, which doesn’t necessarily reflect the overall user experience. Many enjoy the Luxe without needing to contact support.
Configuring the device with Home Assistant can be challenging, but thanks to valuable contributions from our user community, each update brings improvements. I recommend watching this tutorial: Home Assistant Integration Guide. It’s what I personally use, without any family complains reports of crashing or sound issues
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Yes, you are right, it is quite possible I am a minority, or maybe I might even have faulty unit. I wish you the best in your future projects.
Just sharing my experience/satisfaction:
I’ve been using 3 proto boards, always on, always on constant power supply.
Always via music assistant (home assistant).
Only thing I cannot figure out is TTS but I don’t really need it, just would be an interesting challenge getting it to work.
I also hear some faint buzzing on the speaker, but only when volume is below 5% and still playing radio/content.
Otherwise I’m waiting for the new batch to be available so I can order 2 or 3 more (I’m on the verge between the Mn cast and another proto…).
Best!
P.S. @Raspiaudio, you’ve got a great product for tinkers and normal users, but I strongly suggest to go for this if you don’t want to drop a fortune on some Sonos or another high end sound equipment.
Thanks for sharing! A new batch of Proto will be available at the end of this week in the USA and Europe with a few improvements: an I2C Battery Management System (BMS) for gauge reading and setting the charge current, as well as slightly better Wi-Fi performance. I will make a separate post about the new BMS soon and how to use it.
Got my order including the Mn Cast and I like it already.
First try didn’t take for me…no clue what actually went wrong but it was not playing anything and nothing was shown on the screen.
I got a big Q coming up @Raspiaudio:
Is the optical connector only output?
Can Music Assistant control which output it sends out through?
How about if there is an SD card, how can we choose which input it uses?
Thanks,
iGor
Hello and welcome,
Thanks for your message.
The optical out on Mn Cast is an output only. To my knowledge it could only be supported in Squeezelite.
The SD card to m knowledge is not supported in Squeezelite nor Home Assistant. But we provide an Arduino example on how to use it in our simple bluetooth app (see link at apps.raspiaudio.com).
Thanks
Thanks for the link.
For the implementation I have in mind, I want the proto board to instantly play an MP3 file as soon as it is powered on.
I will try to make it work in a closed circuit setting.
If I don’t succeed, I will ask you for help or go for another speaker in HomeAssistant to be triggered once the fireplace is powered on, play a certain MP3 on that speaker
This is for a fake fireplace where I would like it to play crackling fireplace sounds 
yes the simpler is a dedicated apps, feel free to add a new topic for this if you need help