I’ve 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 wasn’t anything available from either Apple, Google nor Amazon that could handle the sort of flexibility Sonos does. I’d be curious if Google can now do it.
I’ll 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 don’t really thank at +$245 Sonos sound is better.
I started using echo’ 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 don’t 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 more…if 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 you’re 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 there’s even more music services and additional product designs. Yes, they aren’t cheap so I agree if that’s the argument you’re using but you can’t make a statement like they don’t 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 don’t 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 £50.
All controlled through homeassistant, full blown multiroom audio with speech notifications and alarm clocks, radio channels and Google Music playlists.
Can’t see the point in spending the money on Sonos, I couldn’t have done 2 rooms in Sonos for the price that I’ve 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.
HA can control CC volume.
Any wifi,Zwave,etc dimmer can act as volume for CC if paired with automation…up/down push buttons…Zwave wireless button…those Amazon button things (rambling but basically anything that can be seen by HA can be tied with automation to control CC volume)
OR
standard volume control on amp.
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Not sure why Sonos is so evil because of the price. Google Chromecasts are only 1/3 of the battle, you still need to drop cash for speakers and amps. Personally, I don’t think 3.5mm out constitutes good audio either. Not to mention, you lock yourself into a platform. Can’t do much if you’re on iOS or subscribe to Apple Music. Yes, you can do cheaper whole home audio with Chromecasts, but it’s definitely not a better solution for everyone. To each their own. I’m simply saying I tried that route, and preferred to pay more for a much more elegant solution and remember, this thread was about someone asking for opinions and I stated my experiences. And I wouldn’t liken Sonos to Bose at all. Obviously, you’ve never tried Sonos if that’s your comparison.
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Uhhh… Chromecast will definitely still be around. It’s insanely popular. Lol
One very cheap, and very flexible solution i’ve been having a lot of success with for several years now looks like this:
I have a dayton audio multi-channel amp, much like you’re looking for:
All speakers are wired like yours (I currently have 5 zones).
Then i setup pulseaudio on my hass server, plus 2 7.1 usb sound cards. Pulse audio can logically treat each card as 4 stereo channels. The outputs of those cards go into the amp.
I then have my audio sources (such as mpd jukeboxes, airplay server, input from echo dots, etc). outputting to pulseaudio. I can essentially have as many distinct audio sources i want.
Now- the magic is this. If i simply left things as-is there’s no audio anywhere. There’s nothing to “route” the audio inputs to the audio outputs. However, there’s a module of pulseaudio called a loopback module. I treat it like a “virtual patch cable”. So i effectively have a matrix controller where i can pick any source, and output to any combination of destinations. Pulseaudio keeps it all synchronized. I created a switch component of home assistant to turn a particular routing on-off. The built-in hass groupings work with it too.
Volume control is basically handled via whatever music player you happen to be using- so for spotify for example, you’d use the slider in spotify app to do it. Many/most of the audio sources i have also have components in hass, so setting volume can be part of a scene, automation, etc. I know it’s not exactly what you’re looking for, but i wanted to share.
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How do you input sources?
I love the Monoprice unit for its flexibility. But if you plan to control everything thru Chromecast audios, you could get a 12 channel amp with auto on/off like the parts-express unit mentioned in this thread. Connect six Chromecast audios to it and you have a relatively simple to control six zone WHA system. All remote and automation control would be via the CCAs.
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Interesting… the only drawback is the volume controls. How do I control the volume at each speaker set? Remember one of the (very strict) criteria is to have a physical knob or set of buttons at each speaker set. And the more I am learning it seems like I want something more modern than wiring the speaker wires through a knob. The monoprice connects with a cat6 cable back to the unit. So I wire the speakers directly and control volume through their wired controls. This wiring allows me to change out and upgrade whenever I decide. I like your idea of just a 12 (or 16) channel amp. But I am stuck on volume control.
I appreciate your help. And you are right… I have no experience with Sonos. To be honest, I am having trouble reading through the hype on their website to get a picture of how this would work given my constraints:
- Physical volume controls that are immediate… not an app… and a wall tablet would have to be on all of the time
- Able to play Spotify, Pandora, and my library (which all 45,000 tracks I have now uploaded to Google Play)
- Able to play on any combination of speaker sets at any time… for example the following combinations:
** Living room, kitchen, and family room
** outside pool and decks
** Master bed and master bath
** Living room, kitchen, and dining room, outside pool and decks
** All speakers in the house
Everything I read about the sonos and all of its fans say it can do this. And I kind of believe them. But to find out if this is true, I have to understand their website and possibly make an investment to determine for myself. Scary.
Really? That sounds very interesting. So I would wire a Zwave light dimmer switch as a volume control. Pressing down on the light switch would signal HA to lower the volume and HA would, in turn, tell the chromecast to turn down the volume? You are the first person to tell me this is possible. That gives me hope. Is this just speculation or do you have a working example? Can you post a video? THANKS!
Put an Amazon Fire 7 tablet in each zone running Floorplan in Fully Kiosk.
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Honestly volume control from The app bring used is best.
You may also use echo Dot and voice control on/off. If you have never used echo in this fashion you should test. I hated voice control but once used learned to appreciate.
As far as zwave, you Do Not wire amp to it.
The switch would be wired as normal AC switch, just with no Light/load connected. All audio volume control would be done in Software using HA automation.
I think volume control through app or voice is enough but if physical control really desired this is option
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