Blind, looking for most integrated home theater

Hardware
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Hey folks, subject pretty much says it all but I’ll give more details below.

I’m blind, and want to replace a 10±year-old cheap non-smart Onkyo home theater system. Good audio that I can tune and tweak is very important to me. Unfortunately, this old receiver has a pile of buttons and an inaccessible screen. I’ve done a couple things with an IR blaster but at the end of the day, trying to get what I want from this system is fitting a square peg into a round hole.

I don’t need a full audio ecosystem that follows me from room to room, though I certainly wouldn’t mind one if I could build it with HA automations somehow. All I really want is a 5.1 system with an optional built-in web interface of some sort, and great HA integration. I’m only looking to hook a TV in via HDMI so I don’t need a complex receiver, unless of course that receiver is running the web interface or similar. Can anyone recommend anything?

Also, I’ve been told by other blind folks that the Sonos ecosystem is pretty accessible. Again, I don’t really need excessive smarts like audio following me from room-to-room, but the feature that tunes audio to the characteristics of whatever room you’re in seems nice. But I prefer to hold onto things, and I’m worried that my Sonos gear will be useless in 5 or so years when software support ends. Is the HA integration good enough to work around not having support from the official app? Obviously I’d need it to set them up, but I’m curious to what extent Sonos gear works independently of the cloud and how well the integration works if you’re not using the app. I don’t expect I’ll continue buying new gear once I have my setup working, so in theory if I want the audio-following feature then the gear I’m using will continue supporting it as long as I hold onto it, and I won’t be continually adding to it and mixing firmware versions.

Thanks for any recommendations.

2

Unfortunately I can’t help you with the “home theater part”, I’m a total noob with these things. I have a small soundbar under my TV and that is quite enough to get angry neighbours at all times of the day. :rofl:

But I can tell you some things about Sonos and why I’d never ever buy one of their devices. The quality of the Sonos speakers is excellent, but you can always get devices / speakers from other manufacturers that offer you the same quality, mostly for a lot less money. :slight_smile:

But, I personally find their business model way overpriced and, as you said, no one can tell what happens in a few years. And that Sonos is a candidate for such “mood swings” is shown in recent years and months. Last month they disabled the possibility to stream locally stored music from an Android device to your speakers… And last year (or was it 2021, idk) they came up with the “Recycling mode”. Ask Google if you want to know more, but in a nutshell they wanted to disable old Sonos speakers via software update, so people recycle their devices. They didn’t went through with it after a big outcry from their users. What they wanted to do was to install a software update that disabled the speakers after 21 days, so they would be unusable and therefor “up for recycling”… For me, this is a no brainer: I pay for a device and the manufacturer can tell me when I have to stop using it - yeah, sure! I might be an idiot sometimes, but this?!

That being said, if you really want to get into that Sonos ecosystem, don’t buy the original products, check first at your local IKEA store. The WIFI speakers from IKEA are made in cooperation with Sonos and are running with the Sonos app.

But there are alternatives: as you are already messing around with HA, try the LMS addOn. It is built from the so called “Logitech Media Server”. It is an all room sound system, that is perfectly working with several speakers in different rooms. As far as I know, you can build a follow me function, but that would need some other components for the presence detection, like ESPresense or Room Assistant (see here for the HA integration of Room Assistant).

LMS is a central music server, that connects to players on your different devices. For example a Pi with an audio output or an ESP32 with a speaker hat or… LMS is available as a standalone server, but I’d take the LMS addOn from the HA community store. Here you can use whatever speakers you like, as long as they mechanically work, they can be used, even for a hundred years. :slight_smile:

I hope others jump in here, that can tell you more about receivers and TVs, it’s just nothing I need, so I’m not very up to date there.

1 Like
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Thanks for re-enforcing my Sonos hesitancy.

I’m now looking into Denon gear which, it seems, has a fairly well-understood command structure and can even be telnetted into. I’m just not sure how comprehensive the support is. The list here lists the 3700H, for example, but I can only find a 3800H on Amazon. It seems like the list might just not be updated, though. Is there any way to know whether the 3800H is likely to be supported? I’m guessing it likely uses the same app as the 3700H so it probably is.

4

Just saying, I’m still not the guy for home theater wishes :rofl:

I once had a Denon receiver (great device, really) and iirc they had a very good support hotline/mail. Try writing them, if they still have the same level of service as ten years ago, they will give you a supportive answer. :slight_smile: