So I’m looking to purchase a house soon, and before I paint I want to set up wiring in the house for a cloud-free smart home.
I currently rent an apartment. I have a home server running unraid with home assistant, and can run whatever server software I want to run. I’m looking at upgrading to a townhouse. Before I have someone come in and paint, I want to wire things for my ideal smart home.
My main focus will be networking and speakers.
I want to set up a server closet for my lab. I plan to get mikrotik switches. I currently plan on using tp-link omada APs for each floor.
I’m less confident in the speaker setup.
System Audio Inputs:
- TV in living room
- TV in bedroom
- Computer in office
- Computer in bedroom#2
- Any mobile device
audio out:
- Living room
- office
- bedroom (x2)
- kitchen
- primary bathroom
I’m imagining having a receiver for all the TV inputs/outputs and a central one for the bathroom, kitchen. I’m unsure about the office.
Cost is not a problem, I’m okay with 10-15k on the equipment for this.
What kind of amps/receivers would work best?
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I like my Denon Heos setup: 2 TVs, home theater, receiver in my office connected to my computer and speakers in 7 other locations. Works great with Music Assistant, and doesn’t require a cloud connection. It can pull firmware updates if you want but I’ve blocked all Internet access for those devices with no loss of functionality.
For whole-home audio, be sure to look at Lyrion! Formerly Logitech Media Server, it’s now a community-managed project. It’s easily the best open-source whole-home audio solution out there
Thanks for putting that out there, will have to check it out!
Not audio specific but…
Shelly products (smart relays, plugs, sensors, etc.) all work over local network control and I’ve been very happy with them. I have a bunch throughout the house, and they are all denied internet access at the network level.
Also, all HomeKit devices must, by the specification, allow local control. You should be able to use those devices locally using the Home Assistant HomeKit Device integration without having any Apple devices. My Ecobee thermostats work great through this integration even though they are also denied internet access.
Good luck, and have fun nerding out on your new home!
Look into Snapcast
My personal setup for 4 rooms worth of speakers is a rpi with a Hifiberry hat running debian with Mopidy. I use the Iris plugin for a front end and i mount my music directory via cifs on each pi
Having a single, central receiver to collect inputs from 5+ A/V sources and deal them back, arbitrarily? to 6 different outputs seems awfully complicated. Something like Jellyfin or mythtv with one or more TV tuners would let you originate all of the TV & streaming signals from your central source to client players - kodi or whatever - in the player rooms. Most of those have at least some control through homeassistant. Kodi on RPis with some basic class D amplifiers in each room, run through the TV, if the room has a TV. Probably couldn’t get synchronized audio in all rooms that way.
Cool thread.
How have you thought about the speakers placement ? Ceiling, floor, how many etc?
I’m thinking of doing a soundbar and subwoofer in the living room, sound bars alone in each bedroom and some bookshelf speakers in other rooms
Don’t get lazy with soundbars; do it properly with discrete speakers (at least in the living room).
Nice. And how are you going to be able to chose what to listen in each room ? Or all rooms will have the same source ?
That question is what brings me here!
Oh man this is rad. This is what done houses in the 70’s and 80’s had. A central sound system throughout the house.
I think you’re looking for a receiver obviously to handle the inputs but then you also need a multi-room amplifier. I’m pretty sure it also has another name, but something like this: Juke Audio
I’ll follow this thread because I’m always interested in everyone’s suggestions.
Probably not what you’re looking for but you can roll your own “smart” speakers that work directly with home assistant and play audio that way. Doesn’t help with audio input from like a TV, but it’s what I’ve got to offer at the moment because it’s what I’m working on at the moment.
Edit:the other name they go by is “matrix amplifier”. Good luck bud.
I would go with Jellyfin as a server and Mopidy client as outputs. Like an rpi with an audio hat or class d amp hat. Planning to add Snapcast to the mix for multiroom audio but didn’t find the time yet.
I’m no expert but just helping you kick the tires a little bit - for the audio outs, are you thinking of just running speaker wire from an amp in the server closet to the ceiling of all of the audio out locations?
For what it’s worth, I’ve dabbled with wifi/Bluetooth speakers and while they generally work well, there always seems to be some software update or connectivity dropouts enough that I’d much prefer a wired system to eliminate over-the-air issues for a long-term robust solution.
Yeah my goal was wired for this reason.
I’ve worked on Bluetooth as a developer and good lord it needs to burn in a fire.
I use the Amplipi from Micro-Nova for whole-home audio and I love it. It’s local, open source and has a Home Assistant integration.
The main unit has 6 zones, but expansions units can be added. I think it supports up to 4 simultaneous streams. We use 2x AirPlay streams, and a turn table connected via RCA, but many other options are supported. They detail it all on their website and GitHub repo.
So idk if this is the same thing as what you’re looking for, but I’ve been planning something similar but with a lower budget, lol
Eventually I’m going to run something like OwnTone on a local server to play my personal collection. I have Google Nest Audio around (mic off) to have large sound but small footprint. And for other speakers or systems that don’t automatically connect to OwnTone, something like a WiiM Mini could work well as a bridge streaming device.
