The goal of this tutorial is to pair arbitrary bluetooth speaker with the Home Assistant (HASSO) to be able to hear notifications & Text-To-Speach (TTS)

What was used during the installation:

Proxmox server

• BT dongle (Broadcom - BCM20702A0); A list of supported BT dongles -> https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/bluetooth#known-working-high-performance-adapters
• Home Assistant (Supervisioned version) (for this tutorial Home Assistant 2023.6.3 -> Supervisor 2023.06.4 -> Operating System 10.3 were used)
• any bluetooth speaker without auto-inactivity or/and auto-shutdown function. I've used Xiaomi Mi Compact Bluetooth Speaker 2 (XMYX02YM)
• 

I. Connection:

1. Identify your BT speaker's BT MAC Address & BT Name
2. Make sure that Proxmox’s HomeAssistant VM has an Audio device added (for example: device=intel-hda, driver=none)
3. Install SSH add-on into the HA and configure it
4. Logging into the HA using terminal: login@IP_Address
5. Switch off your BT speaker
6. Type: bluetoothctl
7. Type: list to list all of your connected BT dongles. You should get the MAC addresses of all your BT dongles
8. Type: select MAC_ADRESS_DONGLE to select your main one dongle (for example: select 55:44:33:22:11:00)
9. Type: default-agent to make selected BT-dongle a default connector with your BT devices
10. Let's start connection & paring with your BT-speaker.
11. Type: scan on
12. Turn on your BT speaker & set it to paring mode
13. Check the console to see if your BT speaker has been detected (look for its name or MAC address). NOTE: Be patient during this process. If the speaker does not appear, try putting it back into pairing mode and checking again.
14. Type: pair MAC_ADRESS (for example: pair 00:11:22:33:44:55)
15. Type: trust MAC_ADRESS (for example: trust 00:11:22:33:44:55)
16. Type: connect MAC_ADRESS (for example: connect 00:11:22:33:44:55)
17. (in the case of any problems type help for more info)
18. Check the connected devices using commands: pactl list | grep ".a2dp_sink". Look for something similar to Name: bluez_sink.4C_72_74_XX_XX_XX.a2dp_sink (NOTE: the number represents the MAC address of your BT speaker)
19. 
20. Set the newly connected BT device as the default sound output by using following command: pactl set-default-sink NAME_OF_YOUR_BT_SPEAKER_FIND_IN_THE_PREV_STEP
21. Check whether the output-audio is not muted, nor volume set to zero, by Mute: (should be no) and Volume:, should be front-left: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB, front-right: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB by using following commend: pactl list sinks | grep "Mute:" and pactl list sinks | grep "Volume:"
22. Type ha audio reload and wait for Command completed successfully message on the terminal
23. At this point your BT should be connected to your HA
24. Type: exit

II. Installing required add-ons & integrations

1. Goto HA and install Settings -> Add-in VLC Local
2. Goto VLC Local -> Configuration
3. Set the Telnet Password and Http Password (you can use the default mypasswrd as well)
4. Change the Audio-Output to the corresponding BT Name (it's the same obtained at I.1 point)
5. 
6. Go back to VLC-Local Info tab and enable Auto-Start option
7. Get back to Info tab hit Start
8. Go to HA Settings -> Devices & Services (Integrations) and Add New Integration
9. Search for VLC LAN select it and pick-up Local VLC Media player via Telnet
10. Enter the password Telnet Password and click Submit
11. NOTE: in case when VM with HA restarts & or BT device shutdowns power on the dev (XMYX02YM should say "Connected" after a few seconds) and go to section I.12 and II.4 points, and start VLC Local back again

III. Testing (Audio files)

1. Go to Developers Tools and Services and enter followings :
2. Service or Actions : Media player: Play media
3. Target: Search for VLC and select your one
4. Content type: music
5. Content ID: /local/your.mp3 (files your.mp3 should be located at the /local/www/ folder of your HA installation)
6. Press Call-Service or Perform the action
   

III. Testing (TTS - Text to speach)

1. Go to Developers Tools and go to Actions or Services and enter followings :
2. Service or Actions: type TTS and select one of your favourite (or default) one Text-To-Speach (for the porpouse of this tutoral I used gogole with google translate

4. Target or entity_id: Search for VLC and select your one
5. Message: type anything you want to be converted to speach
6. Press Call-Service or Perform the action