Automation with Home Assistant

[Pokerbarlo]

If anyone from WiiM is reading this. I am sure this advice will bring in a lot of sales and beat Bluesound Node to a pulp. Since your target market are the more technical, practical and objective side of the home audio industry. Who like science good measurements and technical data. It would be wise to target the same type of people in the Smart Home Automation side of things. I am part of both.

Most objective, technical and practical Smart Home Enthusiats use Home Assistant because it is open source and works with high quality low priced devices like Zigbee. If you guys can get your streamers integrated into the Home Assistant eco system wherein clients can create automations that trigger certain songs or playlists in any music zone in their house I am sure you will be selling more than 3 to unlimited units per client.

Imagine these scenarios:
1. Home intrusion triggers motion, window, door and camera sensors then Home Assistant plays Highway to hell in all zones at high volume.
2. Person forgets to turn off the oven, stove or some appliance the Home Assistant plays a certain song in whichever room the client is as a reminder.
3. At a certain time Home Assitant plays dinner playlist at the dinning room zone

Automation with Home Assistant and other smart devices can be endless.

 

[PacNWGuy]

So, I'm working on a simple setup, but can't quite figure out if WiiM amps will work.
12 zones. Each amped by a WiiM amp. I don't care about any of it's fancy inputs. All I want is to connect 4 different sources to the input on 4 of the WiiM amps. In HA, I'd like all of the zones to be able to select any of the 4 inputs (plugged in to WiiM amps 1-4). I don't want to monkey around with "grouping" zones or anything. Just pick a zone and select one of the 4 inputs (although, if I'm not mistaken, I assume the system will mount 12 inputs - one from each WiiM amp/zone).

Is this possible with the WiiM HA integration?

 

[whereyoubeen]

So, I'm working on a simple setup, but can't quite figure out if WiiM amps will work.
12 zones. Each amped by a WiiM amp. I don't care about any of it's fancy inputs. All I want is to connect 4 different sources to the input on 4 of the WiiM amps. In HA, I'd like all of the zones to be able to select any of the 4 inputs (plugged in to WiiM amps 1-4). I don't want to monkey around with "grouping" zones or anything. Just pick a zone and select one of the 4 inputs (although, if I'm not mistaken, I assume the system will mount 12 inputs - one from each WiiM amp/zone).

Is this possible with the WiiM HA integration?

I have several wiim devices integrated in ha and spent a lot of time optimising my setup, maybe I can help. I'm a bit confused by your question, though.

Do I understand correctly that you want to have 12 wiim amps/zones, with 4 of those amps connected to 4 different sources? That should be possible, but i think you will need to setup an automation for it. If the source of a zone is plugged into another amp, you also will need to include some automated grouping. What you are trying to do doesn't really sound like an easy setup to be honest

 

[PacNWGuy]

I have several wiim devices integrated in ha and spent a lot of time optimising my setup, maybe I can help. I'm a bit confused by your question, though.

Do I understand correctly that you want to have 12 wiim amps/zones, with 4 of those amps connected to 4 different sources? That should be possible, but i think you will need to setup an automation for it. If the source of a zone is plugged into another amp, you also will need to include some automated grouping. What you are trying to do doesn't really sound like an easy setup to be honest

Ok, I reread my message and you're right, I made it sound way more confusing than it really is. I think, in this case, a picture is worth 1000 words:


So, basically, I do not care about itunes, spotify, pandora, or any other fancy streaming option that the WiM amps can do. All I want to do is allow any of the 12 zones to select from any of the 3 sources connected to WiiM amps 1-3. I know that if the WiiM amps were replaced with Sonos amps in my picture, then each of the 3 sources would be available for any of the zones to choose, individually (ie no zone grouping necessary). I am almost certain that with WiiM, it is exactly the same, and just using their app I could have any of the 12 zones select from any of the 3 sources plugged into amps 1-3, and change between sources by zone whenever I want.

So, what I'm hoping is that by integrating into HA, the zones will appear as an entity and that clicking on it will let me select from a dropdown of the 3 sources (or 12 sources, if it automatically recognizes source input from each WiiM).

Note: This is replacing a couple of russound MCA-C5s which literally caught on fire this morning, spontaneously, sending me shopping for an alternative. I'd used it for probably 10 years and I think too much dust settled into it. I loved how the Russound zones were nicely listed as Entities, with a convenient dropdown listing all of the sources available. From there, I could use automations and/or dashboards to control audio sources/volumes. Unfortunately, the replacement cost for two new MCA type devices is several times more than 12 WiiM amps.

Thoughts? I know the WiiM can do what I want (pretty certain), but can the HA integration handle the source list and commands to select the analogue source, by zone?

 

[Brantome]

I think this would be clumsy to do even leaving HA aside. For example, if you wanted zone 12 to play source 1, as it stands today, you’d need to group zone 1 with zone 12 and ask it to play, but then zone 1 would also play unless you muted it. Of course that means zone 1 couldn’t play independently. You’d need to ungroup and re group should you wish to change zone or input.

This may change once DLNA cast is available as you could choose input 1 on zone 1 just to send its output to zone 12, so you wouldn’t need to group nor mute zone 1. Zone 1 however is in effect taken out of the picture for playback to its own speakers.

Might it be an option to use a WiiM Pro (or however many you need) as input switches, then at least you wouldn’t have to mute it like you’d do with an Amp, plus it would leave the Amp zones free for playback.

You might want to communicate directly with WiiM on this as they have versions of their kit for the custom installation market where I’d guess this sort of setup is more routine.

 

[PacNWGuy]

Dang, that answered my question, but not in a way I was hoping. I thought the WiiM amp was more flexible than that.

I've been operating on the assumption that the amps analog input was independent of the amps output. I've been assuming that it was more like my multi zone controllers where input 1 has nothing to do with zone 1, they're just independent inputs and outputs and the more zones you add the more independent inputs and outputs you get. However, you're saying that amp 1s analog input will always play on amp1, and the only way to share it to another zone is to group the zones. I see now what you're saying, I agree that is HORRIBLE and definitely would not get me where I want to go, not even close.

I need to rethink this. Grouping/muting is a terrible option. I just want the zones to be able to independently select one of a few analog sources from a drop down. Simple.
With WiiM in HA, how does source selection work? If I use the app to setup sources for each zone, like WiiM pros or something, will I get my simple source drop-down in my HA entity?

 

[FreakyKiwi]

One WiiM does not see another WiiM's inputs as a source, the source WiiM can only group with another WiiM to mirror its output.

I also don't believe that the WiiM groups can be managed from the HA integration.

 

[ProfessorServo]

Ok, I reread my message and you're right, I made it sound way more confusing than it really is. I think, in this case, a picture is worth 1000 words:

This is exactly the type of setup I'm looking to achieve as well. I wish someone would produce a system that does this exact thing; sort of a "mesh" zone audio, where all the sources that might be connected to the input devices are pooled into a single collection, and any amp can pull from any other amp's input.

I think the WiiM's might get close, if, in addition to the 12 zone amps, you buy a separate WiiM device for each source (so, three in the case of your picture). The input WiiM devices wouldn't need to be amps, maybe they could be Pros instead, or maybe even a brand new type of WiiM device, that simply offers any of it's inputs up to the device pool. Then you'd group whatever output/amp zone you want to play a given source with the input device for that source (or, hopefully WiiM eliminates the grouping straightjacket, and just adds all the devices in the pool to the source picker for each output zone). It just gets messy and expensive real quick.

 

[criticowl]

I've got grouping of WiiM devices working by making a "helper" for all the DNLA renderer entities. It works alright but doesn't allow you to control the volume of each member of the group easily. Right now I have to use the WiiM app if I want to change the volume level of each room individually.

 

[criticowl]

This is exactly the type of setup I'm looking to achieve as well. I wish someone would produce a system that does this exact thing; sort of a "mesh" zone audio, where all the sources that might be connected to the input devices are pooled into a single collection, and any amp can pull from any other amp's input.

There are lots of companies that make the product you are looking for called "Distributed Audio Matrix Amplifier". They can be quite expensive and the streaming / remote control and integration with smart-home systems is all hit or miss.

Cheaper "White Label" products include:

• Outdoor Speaker Depot - 6 Zone App Controlled Amplifier
• Dayton Audio - Audio Matrix Amplifier
• Rockville - Home Matrix 4

Professional systems include:

• Russound
• Control4
• Savant
• Creston

Multi-room Speaker Systems

• Sonos (their products have gotten worse with time)
• B&O Beosound
• Denon - Heos

 

[criticowl]

It will be interesting to see if Harmon takes Harmon Kardon, B&O, and Arcam and switches them to all use RAAT for streaming / multi-room coordination. I've got an Arcam receiver which has an integration with Home Assistant, but it'd be awesome if it could get a firmware update to support RAAT. I then wouldn't need to have the WiiM Pro connected to it anymore. I could also see B&O speakers starting to support Roon directly as well.