I want to move to home assistant but am unsure how the whole multiroom setup works.
As far as I can tell the simplest solution is a bunch of sonos ports which connect to power amps which feed the speakers in my rooms. For voice control Home Assistant Voice should be a decent solution.
This can get really expensive though and I don’t like the idea to buy the same expensive electronics 10-15 times.
That’s why I want to use an audio interface.
Something like an RME Digiface USB with 4x Audient Evo SP8 over ADAT would offer 32 audio outputs and 32 mic inputs for a fraction of the price of sonos.
The outputs would be connected to amps and the inputs to mics that are distributed in the house.
When a mic picks up a command, any music playback in that zone should get muted and the Voice Assistant’s answer (powered by an LLM) would send the output to the speaker in that zone.
Is it possible to achieve such a setup in home assistant/ music assistant?
Or is at least the audio out part possible?
I would separate audio and voice.
I was “wire everything” person in past but DIY audio/Video is now more distributed using local device with wired or wireless connection
HA voice PE is actually really good at “wake word” detection but Price is soso
Atom Echo is good price but wake workd dection is soso
If I was building whole home solution now I would go with VoicePE in high use area and Atom echo in low use.
For Audio I have moved away from in-wall after having amazon echo which were decent (minus bass) for the non audiophile. I would continue this with Voice PE but if better audio desired I would have centralized multi input amp with ESP32 connected to stream audio to independent channels
This would allow
Local Voice in each room with the VoicePE and atom echo
Audio in desired area using esp connected amp
Announcments using both local voice devices and esp connected amp
local voice control with reply back over esp connected amp when desired
Somewhere in there a mixer could be placed to allow ducking
announcements over lowered volume music
This is an option and should effectively be doable. This solution require you wire mics around home?
Hi
Could you explain this more or point me in the right direction?
Basically my whole house is wired for keypads and with in ceiling speakers. Home run through the keypad in wall box location in each room and down to basement server area.
So I can run mini amp (Rpi with amp and screen -but to slow with dashboards with cams). Or multi channel amps from basement.
I originally had Russound system but now like to use HA (Music Assistant) with a few tablets/phones as keypads (but initially they will NOT be tied directly to 1 room/zone.
We mainly just use Spotify but also audio books, music from ripped cds etc. and there is really only 2 of us. So in reality we would only have max of 2 different sources playing in the house at same time . But be nice to have 3 for guest.
Are the keypads connected by Ethernet or some 4wire connection? How are they wired.
For home I basically treat each amp zone as a location or group.
Based on amp in manual.
I may have 2 zone for kitchen (4 speaker total) or 1 zone for bedroom( 2 speakers in serial or parallel) . Just as example
Esp Device can be used as media player. It may be able provide multiple audio out. Source device doesn’t matter. Basic idea would be that kitchen area would have a stereo input connected to 2 zones working as a stereo pair. For bedroom example it would be mono connection to single Zone. I would do this through entire house and outdoor based on speaker needs and room qty.
The amps in manual look like they allow varied input level to adjust volume. I2s component could be Used to build esphome device. It require single GPIO so I presume you can have several audio output. Not sure how well esp can handle multiple audio streams but if only a few sources required maybe it’s easier to just use speaker base and atom lite and use one for each area or speaker group.
Speaker group:
group of speakers tied to 1 or multiple zones using output from single audio device for source audio
Device group:
Group of audio devices used to playback coordinated source audio
Thanks for the reply.
I have a Russound CAV6.6 system with 2 VM1s for video and keypads, IR repeaters etc. barley used. In fact most items and keypads have never been installed. Figured no sense in installing them all now this late in the game. So I removed them and going to sell everything.
And thanks for explaining the rest and giving me ideas. I know it can be done via Rpi and hats or possibly ESP. I just need to do a lot more research.
I think I may have an advantage (I hope) that all speakers are home run and possibly 2x 12 channel (6 zone) amps already. Basically I think I need a “smart” HA controllable source an zone switcher. Or worse one for each zone.
I have been experimenting with the Rpi and DigiAmp Hat and 7" screen in wall for each room/zone. But seems slow and there is complication of powering the Amp hat in wall. Though I have multiple runs or different types or wire to most room/zone keypad locations. Can extract enough for a POE splitter.
So since everything network based I can use real amps from the rack and tablets in the rooms/zones. Just not sure best/cost effective hardware that plays nicely in HA with Music Assistant.
End goal:
Me or Wife or occasional guest:
1 - Uses a tablet kiosk (mobile not always tied to just 1 zone/room as I have over a dozen) or phone
2 - Selects source (usually spotify or occasional radio station but also maybe Plex?)
3 - Then Selects a Zone or Zones
4 - Then Volume control (in app/music player).
I thought simply buying a bunch of Wiim Minis for each zone input down on the amps but that would get expensive and I know can basically build something similar via Rpi or ESP but not sure that is the best solution.
Anyway sorry for rambling on. I just need to research and learn more. But seems most people use little wireless smart speakers over having in-wall/in-ceiling speakers and real amps.