Hi everyone, I’m building an IoT system for hotels (10 rooms), with one Google Home/Nest Mini speaker per room. Our control server runs in the cloud, and the speakers are only connected to the hotel’s Wi-Fi. We need the speakers to play music, MP3 files and TTS announcements, plus volume control and playback status.
The problem: we currently use pychromecast (Cast protocol), but it must run on the same LAN as the speakers. The hotels don’t have any machine to run it on, and they don’t want any extra hardware on-site.
What we’ve looked into but couldn’t use:
- Cast relay casting: no SDK/API that lets a server act as the sender
- Google Assistant SDK broadcast: text only, can’t play MP3s or music
- Device Access API: doesn’t support the Home Mini
- Google Workspace: no API for controlling speakers
Options we’re considering:
- A small box (Orange Pi) per hotel as a relay, connecting out to our server via VPN/MQTT
Would love your input:
- Has anyone controlled a Google Home/Nest Mini from the cloud WITHOUT a device on the local network?
Thanks a lot!