My vision, thoughts?

Tinkering
1

Hi All,

Very happy open-source tinkerer here with Roon Core and Output on a fanless Skull Canyon running ROCK connected to a Geek Pulse, the vision:

– Everything controlled by Alexa, with Home Assistant as the domotics hub, “Alexa, use Roon to play Radiohead OK Computer in the main zone” should:
----Wake ROCK (Roon Core can go to sleep and be woken by Roon Control or API)
----Power on my amplifier, DAC and Saga (using Philips Wemo smart plugs)
----Instruct Roon through the API to play Radiohead OK Computer in the main zone
– Roon Control could have an extension “button” that when pressed uses MQTT to tell Home Assistant to power on my amplifier, DAC and Saga (using Philips Wemo smart plugs)
– A Roon Control volume change uses an IR bridge to adjust my Schiit Saga

Thoughts?

Cheers
Richard

2

You have high hopes

3

That would be super cool, no doubt. I have been able to get Roon to play-pause and skip with my voice and Google Home / Smartthings, just to see if I could. Here is my simple (yet complex) set up:

  • Node based Roon Extension that responds to URLs to Play/Pause/Skip
  • Smartthings Smartapp based on their Sonos smartapp code that sends the URLs to the Roon extension
  • Smartthings simulated buttons that can be turned on and off to execute the smartapps
  • Smartthings/Google Home integration so I can tell Google home to turn on and off the simulated buttons.

It works, but definitely clugy. I am sure there are much better ways to make this happen, but it was fun to tinker. Getting it to respond to requests for Artists and Songs specifically would be sweet. Good luck. The journey is the best part.

4

Hi fellow tinkerer. This is absolutely doable. In fact on my own setup, i’m able to use Alexa to switch on all required components and resume Roon playback automatically. I’m also able to search for an artist and start playing the tracks using Alexa.

My components:

  • Roon running on a Windows 10 PC (on via WOL, off via powershell script, Roon control via custom Alexa skill)
  • AV Receiver Pioneer VSX-921 (on/off, volume, input selection controlled via network interface)
  • Klipsch R15-PM active speaker (on/off via cheap 433 MHz smart plug)
  • 2 Echo Dots
  • Infrared Remote Control (as an alternative to voice control for switching all components on/off)

Switching on/off is controlled by Pimatic. That’s a home automation software running on a Raspberry Pi 2. Controlling Roon is done by my Alexa Custom Skill, which i’ve already mentioned in the Alexa voice control thread.