The Sonos integration works well (thanks to the hard work of its maintainer, jjlawren) but we tend to use the ‘Hey Sonos’ feature (local voice assistant) to select/pause/skip music, group/ungroup speakers, change volume level, ask ‘What’s playing?’, etc. Each speaker also has physical controls for volume, play/pause, previous/next, etc.
Absolutely. One issue with Sonos, though, and I don’t think anything to do with HA, is that the speakers are designed to be always on. I experimented for a while with using smart plugs to power off after a period of inactivity and this sort of worked, but caused a lot of problems, both with the Sonos system itself and with Media Player in HA. Energy consumption is small, but always on is not a good look these days.
Our Yamaha MusicCast setup works well: receiver in the lounge also running speakers in the kitchen as a second zone, and one of their WX-010 speakers in the dining room. Yamaha app is good, and HA integration works well:
You’ve given me something to look at when I get home from work.
With regards to cost, obviously it’s not ideal to spend a big chunk of money in this current climate, but if it’s going to meet expectations long term it should be okay’ish I guess.
We’ll see when we see the grand total and how far our jaws drop.
With regards to your suggestions, can that sort of kit operate from a central location (like a loft) and then run speaker wire or data (if needed) out to each room or location?
I’m already planning to run a pair of Cat6a points to each room in the next week or so and planning to put
in a 19" rack in the loft with a firewall, server, ups, NVR and then feed some Poe cameras and some access points around the house back to it. If I can centralise it like that, that would be nice.
I haven’t fully checked over your suggestions yet as I’m at work, but i’ll have a good look when I’m home.
Thanks for your input so far. I’ve never entertained multi room audio before, so thanks.
Sonos products use Wi-Fi (or Ethernet) and are peer-based, there’s no central controller, therefore there’s no obligation to “run wires” to a central location.
The new Era 100 is a replacement for the long-standing Sonos One (which will probably be discontinued in the future). The Sonos One SL is identical to the Sonos One except it lacks a microphone to support a voice assistant. Pricing (in US currency) ranges from $199 for the One SL to $249 for the Era 100. So the lowest price for 9 rooms would be $1800. Sonos offers occasional sales offering a 15-20% discount (the last one was around Christmas).
If that’s much higher than you expected then you will need to provide a budget so we can suggest something that fits your pocketbook.
Pretty much everything† is, some things support a deeper sleep than others, but the days of a physical power button that actually cuts the power to the entire system are long gone. That goes double for smart devices, which as you said are always on … or they’re not going to respond when you use them.
† Obvious exceptions include dumb toasters and kettles, though not my coffee maker which has a soft button for on/off.
Very true; even our non-smart kettle and coffee machine consume a little power when idle in order to power their touch-based buttons.
Food for thought:
Fifteen years ago, I added smart switches (long before the adjective “smart” was employed) to reduce energy consumption of incandescent lighting. The switch’s 1-2 watts paled in comparison to the light’s 100+ watts.
However, with the advent of LED lighting, the switch’s idle energy consumption is now, arguably, a significant fraction of the light itself (i.e. the switch’s 24 hours * 1.5 watts = 36 watt-hours vs the light’s 5 hours * 12 watts = 60 watt-hours).
I’ve resigned myself to the fact that the switch’s idle power consumption is now the price of convenience.
So a Play:1 in Europe would use about 33 kWh a year. At prices from April, that’s about £11. I have six, so £66 per year. Interestingly, my smarthome stuff costs about £80 a year to run. Computers and network, about £160. Don’t know where I’m going with this.
I use Chromecast and Google Home devices and in the Google Home App I created speaker groups.
With the Google Cast Integration I created Automations that play selected radio stations, at specific times, either in a specific room or to all rooms. These automations also set the volume that I want a different times of the day.
The Chromecast devices are connected to their own assigned amplifier.
If you want to go the DIY road: Logitech Media Server and Picoreplayer.
That way you can reuse the speakers you already have or you are not bound to the ones that come with these systems mentioned above.
Another benefit: not being bound to the software/updates/availability that these companies provide.
I am really not much for Sonos.
I find their products expensive to buy and expensive to have in standby (al though the just released versions improves it a bit) and more than 2 speakers in a room seems to be causing delays on the sync when starting/switching songs.
If I had an option to pull cables in the ceiling and have a central tech cabinet/room, then I would go with a good multi room amplifier and standard speakers instead.
You might have to search for the ones that have a ethernet/wifi control port, but they do exist.
I would probably start with an Onkyo TX-NR7100 for handling the home theater setup and then maybe use the zone 2 and 3 as extra rooms. it might cost nearly the same as a Sonos speaker, but this one then handle all the audio and video signals you could think of.
If I needed more then I would just a basic multi room amplifier for the rest, which would probably only cost a fraction of a Sonos system and since speakers will be handled by one device, then syncing is not an issue.
I am in the same boat as op.
I have cable wires run to.my rack in a cellar (10 zones, but i might be starting with 8 zones).
One thing different is that sonos is a no go for me (it is an audio Apple for me ).
I definitely need to have some sort of spotify connect and of coursa HA integration to be able to play music for zones or zones groups from on wall tablet (android).
I have been considering:
Bluos device which tick all the boxes - decent audio quality, standard instead of closed one company system (some good audio companies like NAD or Monitor Audio already have few multizone devices (streamers and amps). The only drawback is a cost comparable.to Sonos i believe. I am not sure whether there is HA integrstion.
The other less costly.option would be daytona dax-88 bit i do not know much about sound quality and i am not sure about user friendliness but it integrates with HA with Xantech/monoprice integration.
Looks like there is a niche in the market.
Any ideas anyone?
Perhaps it may be due to the built-in voice assistant. Add some circuitry to your system to create a voice assistant and let us know the total power consumption.
I wish that I could agree with statement. I am willing to be wrong but I have had a lot of trouble with HA and Sonos. It is fine if all you use are services but if you have a NAS with music that you want to play through the Sonos it is a pain. I can play individual songs but it has but I am not able to play a m3u. I am actually starting to look for an alternative.
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