Chromecast Audio Speaker

I started using HA with a speaker hardwired to the Pi I was running it on and playing prerecorded messages for household announcements. Then the devs added TTS, so I used that and it was nice, but I couldn’t hear the messages from the other end of the house. So I wanted to get some Chromecast Audios (CA) to expand the range and function of the announcements and whole home audio. What I didn’t want was a bunch of wires coming from the speakers to the CAs to the power outlet and just making a mess, so I came up with a nice little setup that looks now like it’s going to be surpassed by the Google Home mini. I’m going to share what I did anyway.

I started with some satellite speakers from an old surround sound system. They were nice and small but had enough room to play with inside the enclosure.

  • I found a little 3 Watt Amp chip (PAM8403) that ran on 5V and did a good job of driving the speaker.

  • I cut the USB power cable that came with the CA and split the power coming in between the CA and the Amp Chip.

I found there was a lot of noise coming through when the CA was connected. After fooling around trying to build a filter that would block the noise I decided to try a little audio transformer to filter any DC noise from getting to the amp. It worked like a charm. Now when the CA is inactive it is absolutely silent. Here is the diagram of how I ended up connecting things.

The finished product turned out really well. A little black speaker with a long USB cable coming out of the back of it where the audio wire once was. Now you just plug it in anywhere you want and you’ve got Chromecast goodness wherever you need it.


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Okay, that is a solidly cool hack:)

Super awesome!!