you dont HAVE to use voice control. The Chromecast Audioâs are just your output device, how you control them is up to you. I use a combination of voice control and via the HassIO frontend.
Okay, now I see what youâre trying to understand. It is hard to visualize what Home Assistant is (itâs everything! jk) without actually installing it first.
- Do the fire tablets run a web browser (like http://www.ozerov.de/fully-kiosk-browser/) into a HA server or is there HA software running on the fire tablet?
You can use any Amazon Fire tablet and browser (I recommend Fully Kiosk Browser) to load the Home Assistant dashboard (which is a fancy webpage, like http://hassio.local:8123) running off a Raspberry Pi with Home Assistant installed (this is the HA server). There is an official iOS app that works pretty well on iPhone. Donât know if it displays well on an iPad. The HA demo here https://home-assistant.io/demo/ gives you a good idea of what it will look like on the Fire tablet, or any device that runs a supported web browser.
- Do I have a fire tablet at each location?
You can use any device that runs a web browser, but Fire tablets work well with Home Assistant.
- Do you have a screenshot of the HA audio interface? Or do I need to write my own? I cannot seem to find a screen shot.
I think this is the part you will run into trouble, because Home Assistant isnât focused on audio. You can add a media player component, like the Spotify player, and that will give you basic functionality like play, pause, next track. See screenshot of the Spotify player on the dashboard here:
The media player shows up as a âcardâ in the UI. You can click on the âthree dotsâ and you get some additional options, but thatâs it for the Spotify component. You canât change too much unless you write your own custom card, which requires some web development skill.
You canât browse through playlists with the current Spotify component. Pandora is another component you have to add, and that component looks more difficult to setup as it is using another open-source program called Pianobar (https://home-assistant.io/components/media_player.pandora/)
- Do I have a volume control in addition to the fire tablets?
The Spotify volume control you see in the screenshot above works pretty well, because Spotifyâs API lets you set volume control easily. For Pandora and Audible, I donât know.
Basically, I think Home Assistant wonât be able to do what you want without some major customization
Iâll give you something else to researchâŠthere is another platform called Volumio that has a slick web UI to browse your local files from a NAS, and a Spotify plugin that does let you browse through playlists. Unfortunately you cannot use Chromecast Audios or Amazon Echos to play music through Volumioâit will only play through the Raspberry Pi (where Volumio server is installed) or through the USB DAC attached to it. You could potentially install Snapcast server on your Volumio server, and then put Raspberry Pis w/ Snapcast in each of the rooms and connect each to a set of speakersâŠbut you can imagine how messy that gets. I wouldnât do it unless you have a good understanding of Linux and installing packages on your own.
As of early December 2017, Spotify supports Amazon Echoâs multi-room audio feature. It takes a long time to add support to Amazon Echo multi-room, so I think it only works with Spotify, Pandora, and Amazon Music.
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the link i put in post #6 is a nice way of creating your own internet radio selection âmedia playerâ which also has control of chromecast devices, volume etc.as an alternative to something like Spotify.
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I have the Monoprice 6-zone unit (https://home-assistant.io/components/media_player.monoprice/). I belive it is a rebrand (or at least similar specs) of a russound caa66 system. Product link: https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=10761
I actually paid over 600 bucks for it when it first came out. I love it. I am able to run up to 6 sources from it. with home assistant I can be playing music via one chromecast and have it interrupted with a different chromecast source (google text to speech notification for example) and then resume playing original source. I have only been running home assistant for about 5 days but have it setup and working perfectly already. Nice thing is wife and kids can use control pads on the wall to select source and control volume if they chose to not use home assistant.
price is right especially if you can snag it with a 20% off coupon that monoprice runs every now and then. Its actually on sale for 449 shipped right now.
Neil
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The Monoprice unit is great. I paid $420 for my first one and bought a second refurb for $200. For $660 I have a 12x6 audio matrix that fully integrates with my HomeAssistant setup.
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Slightly off topic, but to play your local music, Spotify, and Pandora through the Chromecast Audios, look into Mopidy instead of Volumio. The latest post (1/15/18) from this topic (Spotify in combination with chromecast) mentions a detailed tutorial to install Mopidy, Icecast, and get it working with the Chromecast Audios.
Once you build Mopidy, you can add an iframe side panel to Home Assistant that lets you view the Mopidy UI within Home Assistant.
Look into a Plex server
Between Plex and streaming radio apps this is interface I would go with.
If you ever use Chromecast you might know that when you cast to device, every device on wifi shows control interface. At least with Android. I would imagine same for Amazonâs tablets but who knows with their wat with Google.
Chromecast has volume control. The casting device controls with volume buttons on tablet or you can use Google Home app to control from any device.
I would create some automations in HA to control generic things or give you ability to do doorbell through Chromecast (I wired doorbell to Pi and played doorbell through Chromecast when it pushed)
Yes. Kiosk mode and maybe specific Group tab for each room
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All of these are good solutions, but the reason Sonos stands out as the best is it is the best and easiest to use with little configuration. To build any of these ideas, requires a lot of time and itâs all put together with âbubblegumâ imo. If something breaks, your family will be screaming at you to fix it, immediately!
Sonos with Alexa is as easy as thisâŠ
âAlexa, play artist name/genre/song title in the roomâ
âAlexa, turn up the volume in the roomâ
âAlexa, pause the music in the roomâ
They are still in public beta with the Sonos/Alexa integration but coming soon is grouping speakers (can be done from the Sonos app) and âsmart roomsâ which means that you wonât have to say the room you want to play in, it will automatically play based on the one thatâs the closest to the Alexa speaker you asked it from.
Another cool feature with Sonos, is they eliminate the âsorry youâre playing music already from this account, so playback is stoppedâ. So if you subscribe to one Spotify premium account, you can play different songs on different speakers in the house and it wonât stop or not play. To my knowledge, this wonât work with all the other solutions mentioned here.
Thereâs a lot of other advantages for Sonos, such as if you have a Playbase or Playbar hooked to your TV and itâs playing music, as soon as you turn on the TV, it disconnects itself from the group and plays from the TV.
Iâve tried so many whole home audio projects in the past and Iâm convinced Sonos is worth itâs weight in gold!
Whatever you do, I wouldnât hitch your wagon to one particularly system. Sure, design and optimize for a particular system right now, but I recommend having some platform neutral wiring for both audio and controls that go back to wherever youâd put a âreceiver,â since youâre down to the studs.
Who knows what youâll want in ten years!
Also, if youâre thinking of going with home assistant, get quantity 1 of all of the hardware you need, and get playing with it now. 
All of this can currently be done with Chromecast Audio and Google Assistant, as ISNT in betaâŠ
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I wasnât under the impression you could use the same streaming music service in multiple rooms at the same time.
Iâve never tried using different songs in each room, but I often have the same music in either one or multiple rooms.
This is one of the prime reasons I went with Sonos since as of a year ago when I bought my house there wasnât anything available from either Apple, Google nor Amazon that could handle the sort of flexibility Sonos does. Iâd be curious if Google can now do it.
Iâll give a try when I can
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Sonos is Not whole home audio.
It is very good alternative but this is different design philosophy.
I would use Amazon echo ($45/each) in each room before a Sonos($299+/room). I donât really thank at +$245 Sonos sound is better.
I started using echoâ in rooms after my kids began playing them while doing chores (and they love it). Alternatively, I had 100w Atlas amps installed(each room) and removed them temporarily and now wonder if I should sell. While the audio is better I realize that this aspect is not important to most. They just want music but donât care from what. My wife would listen to music from phone and poor quality audio drove me nuts(she was happy). I instead focused on theatre and outdoor sound.
I like Sonos but cost for benefit is prohibitive.Also I expect support life for the product to be 5yr range before you get pushed to get newer model by them else suffer missing new feature. This is my problem with the product. At that cost I prefer in wall speaker and amp(no limit on life) backed up by changeable audio source(currently Chromecast but previously PC+Plex or the 500cd changer of old times) If your paying for install there is huge cost difference but diy Sonos is same cost as in wall if not moreâŠif you want Alexa control just run 3.5mm to room and plug Alexa into room audio. When possible I suggest dual source(fixed in AV closet with 3.5mm to room) but this is not easy
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@tmjpugh
What??? Uh Sonos IS whole home audio. Obviously you have no idea what youâre talking about. And nope there is no sign they are going away anytime soon. When my brother in law was building his first home back in 2011, I talked him out of Sonos thinking the same thing. In fact Sonos became even more popular. They are still selling the Sonos Connect and Connect Amp they were back then and now thereâs even more music services and additional product designs. Yes, they arenât cheap so I agree if thatâs the argument youâre using but you canât make a statement like they donât do whole home audio!
Yes. Price is my issue.
No offense to anyone with Sonos
Sonos reminds me of Bose.
Provides convenient solution at high cost.
My point was more about price vs value.
I do believe Sonos is great product and do recommend for some people(renter or short term home. Just donât recommend for any DIY types as convenience can be achieved for less $ and better value available at that price point.
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I have 5 speakers in my house. Livingroom, kitchen, our bedroom, boys bedroom, girls bedroom. Each has a chromecast attached.
Total price per room under ÂŁ50.
All controlled through homeassistant, full blown multiroom audio with speech notifications and alarm clocks, radio channels and Google Music playlists.
Canât see the point in spending the money on Sonos, I couldnât have done 2 rooms in Sonos for the price that Iâve done my whole house.
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I still need physical volume controls to please the boss. I have looked for a physical volume control for the chromecast. I have even thought of taking a leviton toggle and hacking it to control each chromecast volume. So far the monoprice amp looks like the best cheap solution.
Thanks.
The great thing about the Chromecasts is that I can gang them in as many arbitrary groups as I want and play a music source out of either individual devices or any gang. Works great! The monoprice Amp seems like a great choice. There are drawbacks⊠like not being able to use the same audio connection for all six sources and not being able to have as many sources as destinations if I connect more than one Monoprice together. But at $450 per box and $35 per CA, it seems like I have solved the problem cheaply and settled all of my criteria⊠almost.