I am newer to Home Assistant and I am trying to pull in all of my different smart home accessories I have collected over the years. I am now trying to integrate my audio experience to the system for maximum integration.
I have Apple iPhones with the Apple One+ subscription, but the primary audio devices throughout my house are Amazon Echos. As everyone who has this combination knows it works… okay at best. Can only be controlled through voice and maybe Alexa will understand what you are talking about, and is horrible with selecting Apple Playlists/radio stations.
The answer is the Echo Link. This will now take Line In inputs and do local distribution throughout the Echo family, and what I think is the missing link in taking over the Echo’s for true local control over the speakers. You can set this up from the Alexa app for Line In Distribution.
What I would like to do is take control of the 3.5mm output jack on the Home Assistant Blue. First would be to have the HASS turn into an Airplay 2 receiver and output to the jack- if that’s possible?
From there I can set up Almond or any other local-run audio output to the speakers. Finally I would like to create custom scripts that send speaker setups to change rooms from the Dashboard that output the HASS.