Google Home, Google Chromecast Music, Speakercraft MZC-66 and Smartthings Integration

I just made the switch to Smartthings from Homeseer. Nothing against homeseer, I should have just purchased a separate unit but was running it on my desktop which was not as reliable as I would like and it would have cost much more to now purchase one of their units vs switch to Smartthings and Smartthings was cheap enough to go ahead and give it a whirl.

I am trying to determine which whole home audio format to use that will allow for Smartthings Audio Notifications and automatic triggers that is the best bang for the buck.

I currently have a whole home audio system utilizing two Speakercraft MZC-66 amplifiers and in wall (Polk 265RT), ceiling speaker (Klipsch CDT-3800-C II), and outdoor speakers (polk Atrium 6) speakers. There are a couple more rooms I would like to add speakers and while I prefer in wall, I am somewhat neutral in those locations. I also have a nice Yamaha receiver with Musiccast which is nice, but I do not think that id integrates with Smarthings and I do not see any way that it would feasibly do so.

Cheapest: I think that the cheapest option would be to run Google Chromecast audio to either the existing zones in my Speakercraft sources or get inexpensive amps and run Chromecast through them. Does Chromecast work with Smartthings notifications. I do have Google Home (which can trigger Chromecast devices and works to trigger events in smartthings) if this makes a difference.

Easiest / Most Expensive: I could get a Sonos Connect Amp for each zone (12) or try the Bose, which is comparable in price. Has anyone used these and what are your thoughts. Would it be worth the price?

This is my project and it works for me. I haven’t been able to get the Goggle Helper to work for me yet, so I recommend using some or part of my project: (I have replicated it on two project computers: C.H.I.P and the Pi Zero W)

https://community.smartthings.com/t/chip-pi-zero-w-vlc-thing-big-talker-sonos-killer/35899?u=lmosenko

Excellent. I will look into it.

The cheapest way, in my opinion would be to use choromecast audio’s for existing speakers and use Google Home or Mini’s. You can then use the cast web api to get it to do notification. Once you hook up webCore, you can automate a lot of the notifications by triggering pistons.

Oh…you will need a Raspberry Pi to act as the middle man and link up smartthings and google home/chromecast.

Here is a tutorial on how to set up the cast api - http://www.mysmartcave.net/2017/09/11/connecting-google-home-chromecast-smartthings/