Ive been moving away from Alexa due to privacy concerns, so I have been looking for an “affordable” replacement for TTS announcements.
I have fine tuned most of my automations and with a couple of strategically placed NFC tags I no longer need to use the voice assistant…
This is the parts I used:
You have to hook the Chromecast to a tv/monitor for setup, but once thats done you dont need the monitor any more. It works well but costs around $67 total. Much better than a Sonos though. System is loud enough and you control the volume with a Call Service set volume.
I never did understand why Google killed off the Chromecast Audio - I have one connected to my Amplifier’s optical input, and it works with 3.5mm too. Then you wouldn’t have needed the splitter.