Onkyo FlareConnect for Home Assistant

Control FlareConnect multiroom groups on Onkyo, Pioneer and Integra devices from Home Assistant — group and ungroup speakers without the vendor app.

Unlike Chromecast groups, FlareConnect carries any source the master is playing, including the FM tuner and analog inputs. That is something Cast and AirPlay cannot do.

Why this exists

The official Onkyo Controller app is the only supported way to manage FlareConnect groups, and it no longer works reliably on modern Android. Neither the group state nor the grouping command appears in any published protocol documentation, so this integration is based on protocol analysis of the app's own traffic.

The protocol

Two undocumented eISCP commands on TCP port 60128 do all the work. Neither appears in the official ISCP command list.

MDI — read group state

MDIQSTN returns XML describing every zone:

<mdi>
  <deviceid>0009B0XXXXXX</deviceid>
  <netstandby>1</netstandby>
  <currentversion>200</currentversion>
  <zonelist>
    <zone id="1" groupid="88" ch="ST" role="src" roomname="Living room"
          groupname="" powerstate="1" iconid="0" color="0" delay="5000"/>
    ...
  </zonelist>
</mdi>

A group is nothing more than the same groupid on every member, with exactly one role="src" (the master) and the rest role="dst". When ungrouped, groupid is 0 and every role is none. There is no member list in MDI: each device only reports its own zones.

MGS — set group state

MGS is write-only — it does not answer QSTN, which is why scanning for commands never reveals it. It is always sent to the master, which then drives the members:

group:    !1MGS<mgs zone="1"><groupid>88</groupid><maxdelay>5000</maxdelay>
               <devices><device id="0009B0XXXXXX" zoneid="1" /></devices></mgs>

ungroup:  !1MGS<mgs zone="1"><groupid>0</groupid></mgs>

device id is the member's MAC address without separators, exactly as reported in <deviceid>. The groupid is yours to choose; the official app picks a fresh number each time. After the change the app sends MGV200 (the protocol version) to every device involved, which this integration mirrors.

Group changes are not pushed over eISCP — not to the app, not to any other connection — so state has to be polled.

Why this integration does not poll

The built-in onkyo integration keeps a persistent eISCP connection open, and the receivers push their state over it — volume, power, source. Opening a second connection knocks that one off: the built-in integration then misses those pushes and has to re-query everything when it reconnects, which shows up as Disconnect detected warnings and flickering media info. Measured here: 95 disconnects in a single evening while polling every 15 seconds.

So this integration does not poll in the background. It reads group state on startup, right after its own join / unjoin, and whenever you call onkyo_flareconnect.refresh. Group state only changes when someone groups or ungroups anyway — the only case it can miss is grouping done from the vendor app, and a refresh picks that up.

Installation

HACS

Add this repository as a custom repository of type Integration, install, and restart Home Assistant.

Manual

Copy custom_components/onkyo_flareconnect into your Home Assistant config/custom_components/ directory and restart.

Setup

Settings → Devices & services → Add integration → Onkyo FlareConnect. Devices found through eISCP discovery are prefilled; otherwise enter the IP addresses separated by commas.

Entities

One sensor per device, sensor.<room>_flareconnect_group:

State	source, receiver or not grouped
group_id	Current group number, 0 when ungrouped
source	Room name of the master
members	The other rooms in the group
device_id	MAC address, as used by the services

Services

onkyo_flareconnect.join

Field	Required	Description
source	yes	Master device — IP address or device id
members	yes	Devices that follow the master
group_id	no	Group number; picked automatically when omitted
max_delay	no	Audio delay in ms, default 5000

action: onkyo_flareconnect.join
data:
  source: 192.168.1.10
  members:
    - 192.168.1.11

onkyo_flareconnect.unjoin

action: onkyo_flareconnect.unjoin
data:
  source: 192.168.1.10

Tested on

Onkyo HT-R695 (master) and Onkyo NCP-302 (member), firmware 2151-0000-0000-0011-0000. Other FlareConnect and FireConnect devices use the same commands and should work; reports welcome.