Spindle

Spindle turns a Stream Deck+ dial into a live "now playing" display for any Home Assistant media player. The touch strip shows the cover art over a blurred backdrop, the title and artist (scrolling only when they don't fit, with real Japanese, Chinese and Korean glyphs), play bars and the volume. Turn the dial to set the volume with an instant on-strip readout, press it to switch to tracks mode and skip tracks, and tap the strip to play or pause. Nothing needs to change on the Home Assistant side: paste your Home Assistant URL and a long-lived access token, pick a media player, and you're done. Several dials can show different players over one shared connection. Spindle has no telemetry and talks only to your own Home Assistant. A dedicated non-admin Home Assistant user is recommended for the token. Requires a Stream Deck+, Stream Deck 7.1 or newer, and Home Assistant 2025.10 or newer. Not affiliated with Home Assistant or Elgato.

Spindle grows from one dial action to four.

Now Playing (Wide): put it on two neighbouring dials to show one player across both strips. The left dial sets the volume (press to mute), the right dial skips tracks (press to play or pause). Tap the left or right end to skip, the middle to play or pause.

Tap zones on the Now Playing dial, as an opt-in setting: tap the strip's left or right edge to skip tracks. Off by default.

Cover key: the now-playing cover on any Stream Deck key, as art with a play-state badge, art only, art with the title, or title and artist on the accent colour. Press to play or pause.

Transport key: play/pause, next, previous, mute, volume up or volume down, with an icon that follows the player. Hold a volume key to keep stepping.

All actions share one Home Assistant connection and one 10 updates per second budget. Existing Now Playing dials are unchanged.