Welcome to today’s daily kōrero!
Anyone can make the thread, first in first served. If you are here on a day and there’s no daily thread, feel free to create it!
Anyway, it’s just a chance to talk about your day, what you have planned, what you have done, etc.
So, how’s it going?
I would love some smart speakers but I find them pricey as well.
I’m using a Chromecast audio with an old pair of speakers on a smart plug. The speakers are old enough that it only has an IR remote.
I have it setup so:
Main reason it’s setup this way is I already had the old speakers and getting a Chromecast audio and IR blaster was much cheaper than getting good smart speakers. Although you’re right it would be much simpler if I just get some decent smart speakers.
That’s a nice automation. Where did you get CC Audio? As they are no longer sold.
I got it shortly after I heard they were discontinued, so there was still some stock floating around. I think it might have been through Dick Smith/Kogan at the time?
If you’re willing to go down the Amazon route, I think Echo Dot’s have an aux out? They had a device called the Echo Input as well which was like and Echo Dot without the speaker, doesn’t seem available anywhere though. I would probably only try this if I could be sure I could disable the microphone and smart speaker functions.
Thanks. Yeah I don’t want any cloud based stuff, especially not from Amazon as I’m afraid they will shut down Alexa if they keep losing money on it.
Guess I’ll wait for now. Thanks.
Understandable. I feel like there must be something out there that works as a replacement, I just haven’t looked very deeply into it.
This is an ESP32 solution: https://www.instructables.com/MQTT-Audio-Notifier-for-ESP8266-Play-MP3-TTS-RTTL/
I saw ESPMuse, which is an ESP32 based speaker, but has terrible reviews.
I just checked TM, CC Audio is sold for $200 there. Crazy. https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/marketplace/electronics-photography/media-streaming/chromecast/listing/4278960673
Sorry one more post :) I just found this one on Aliexpress which seems promising. Works via a dedicated app but it seems compatible with HA. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003331228026.html
Could be an affordable alternative.
Interesting, now I’m wondering if I should sell my CC audio for $200 and get one of these 🤔