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Media Players and Alexa Skill

Media Players

Plex comes with a web based media player out of the box. Here, you access a web front end through your web browser, using your IP address, followed by the port number that you're configured with (or via https://plex.tv/web).

This works well on computers and mobile devices and I'd probably have stuck with that had I not wanted to control my media centre at home with a remote control.

There are a couple of options for Plex Media Player - some applications like the Windows App available through the Windows App store, which unfortunately seems to need a Premium Plex Pass to use properly, but also a free download from https://www.plex.tv/downloads/.

On that page click "Get an App" and then select Plex Media Player > {Your OS} to download the player.

Not only does this media player have a better interface in full screen (recommended), it also allows you to use a standard remote control, so it will understand cursor keys, pause buttons and FF/REW (jumps video forward) etc. Well worth a look.

Alexa Skill

I got an Echo Spot for my birthday. I love it, but I was initially frustrated by appearing to need a music subscription to get the most out of it. I wanted to play my local MP3 collection through my Amazon Echo and it initially seemed that I could only do that by connecting to the speaker using bluetooth.

Eventually, I found that there is a Plex Skill for Alexa, which does allow you to access all local MP3 files as long as you have Plex Media Server running. If you have a computer at home and you are happy to have this running 24/7, you can get some instructions from the rest of this article to get Plex running for you and then access your own media through your Alexa device.

Setting up the Alexa Skill for Plex is pretty easy - https://support.plex.tv/articles/115000320808-getting-started-with-alexa-voice-control/ gives good instructions and you'll be away in no time. The article kind of assumes you have access to more than one Plex server. If, like me you only have one, you don't need to do the "Ask Plex to change my server" step. If you do it, Alexa will just tell you she's already selected the one server you have.

After that, you can access your local music by saying "Alexa, ask plex to play the album {album title}" and you will hear your own music played through the echo device.

Once I realised that a music subscription is not necessary, I ended up buying more echo devices, such as the Amazon Echo as I wasn't as tied to a subscription as I expected to be.

 

Amazon Echo (Referral) Amazon Echo Spot (Referral)
Amazon Echo Amazon Echo Spot Alexa Plex Skill