work. Seemed like there must be a better solution these days... What I had in place was - Speakers in several zones (with more waiting to be installed)
- Amps in a central location (in my server rack)
- Housebot PC in the same rack.
Biggest new factor was that we all have android phones, and tend to listen to our media through there, albeit with different programs (Doggcatcher, Google Music, Youtube, etc). Another desired feature was to allow any source to be streamed to multiple outputs.
What I ended up doing was not quite as tightly integrated as doing it all in Housebot, but seems to be working well for us, with one caveat that I will mention later.
I bought three Chromecasts, and three HDMI to VGA converters. The converters have 3.5mm audio jacks. By adding some load resistors to the VGA converters, the Chromecasts are fooled into thinking there is a display, and they turn on.
I bought an Extron A/V matrix switch (dirt cheap these days since everyone wants HDMI) and plugged my CC with converters into the inputs. Outputs go to individual zones. HB text to speech output will go to another input channel. The switch is fully controlled from a serial port (thanks Richard!) which allows configs to be made on the fly-
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Then just CC from whatever app is desired. Remote stays with you, stuff you are listening to keeps its place (like podcasts)... we did push all our local music up to Google play, although it turns out there are probably other ways to do that.
The one caveat- the Extron is supposed to have volume controls, but mine does not seem to have that feature (or maybe it is locked somehow?). Doggcatcher in particular does not do a good job of keeping the same volume, and can be a bit loud in the kitchen zone especially. There is also a minor control caveat in that we can no longer control other peoples zones from a central location, although I can always cheat and steal their outputs.
Markd