Can the Beosound Essence Remote control Home Assistant?

Not on its own. Home Assistant has no built-in support for the Essence Remote. A bridge that pairs with the remote over Bluetooth, either a DIY setup or Lydbro Zero, turns its gestures into Home Assistant events you can map to any automation, scene, or device.

Is there an official Home Assistant integration for the Beosound Essence Remote?

No. Unlike some newer Bang & Olufsen products, the Essence Remote has no official Home Assistant integration. You bring it into Home Assistant with a bridge: build your own over Bluetooth, or use Lydbro Zero, which offers a native Home Assistant integration, MQTT, and webhooks.

Does it need the cloud?

No. Lydbro Zero talks to Home Assistant over local MQTT, and a DIY bridge can do the same. There is no cloud dependency and no internet connection is required for it to work.

Beosound Essence Remote + Home Assistant

Bring the most elegant dial Bang & Olufsen ever made into your smart home.

The Beosound Essence Remote is a beautiful object: turn the dial for volume, press to play or pause, flick to skip. Home Assistant has no built-in support for it, but with a bridge you can turn those gestures into events and use the dial to run anything in your smart home. This guide covers the realistic ways to do it.

First, the honest part: there is no official integration

Unlike some newer Bang & Olufsen products, the Essence Remote has no official Home Assistant integration. So both methods below work the same way: something pairs with the remote over Bluetooth, listens for its turn, press, and flick, and publishes those as events Home Assistant can act on. There are two realistic routes.

Option 1: Roll your own over Bluetooth

A small always-on computer such as a Raspberry Pi can pair with the Essence Remote and republish its gestures to Home Assistant over MQTT. This is the most flexible route and needs no dedicated hardware beyond the Pi. The trade-off is that you handle the Bluetooth pairing and the remote's protocol yourself, and keep the service running and updated. A good option if you enjoy the tinkering.

Option 2: A plug-and-play bridge (Lydbro Zero)

If you would rather skip the DIY work, Lydbro Zero is a dedicated bridge that does Option 1 for you. It pairs with the Essence Remote over Bluetooth and connects to your network over wired Ethernet (PoE or USB powered). Every gesture can be sent wherever suits you best: a native Home Assistant integration, MQTT with automatic discovery, or plain webhooks for anything else. Everything runs locally, it is configured from a built-in web UI, and firmware arrives over the air.

What you can control

Once the remote's gestures reach Home Assistant, they become events you can map to anything Home Assistant can reach:

Volume up and down, by turning the dial
Play and pause, by pressing
Skip, by flicking
Media players: Sonos, BluOS, Chromecast, AirPlay, and more
Lights, scenes, and any automation or script you have already built

Which option is right for you?

You are comfortable with a Raspberry Pi and Bluetooth tinkering: build your own bridge.
You want it to just work, with no server to maintain: Lydbro Zero.

About Lydbro Zero

References & further reading

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