Audio receiver that can act as an audio sink

Hi,

I have an old onkyo (not network capable) A/V receiver with a broken remote control. I’d like to get a new receiver one day and wondering if there’s any receiver (brand) binding that supports being an audio sink in openhab? From what I read, only onkyo binding seems to support this but I found posts here saying it doesn’t work, or works with a long delay.

If you can still get one, the ChromeCast Audio is a great (cheap) option that provides an Audio Sink to openHAB2, as well as all the other fun stuff…

The video (HDMI) ChromeCast supports audio from openHAB2 (as well as any other generic video stream) so that might be an option.

A Sonos connect amp thing would probably work too (but 11x the price)

There is a Raspberry Pi project from Balena that might be of interest to you.

I don’t know if the Spotify binding would work with it.

Thanks for the idea. So if I wanted it to go to the receiver, I would first turn the receiver on, switch input to aux in, and then play audio through chromecast audio that’s plugged into the receiver’s aux?

That’s about the top and tail of it.

Useful to know is that the HDMI version of the ChromeCast fully supports CEC, so by simply pushing content to it will signal a compatible amp to change inputs.

(Not sure if it will switch on the Amp, I haven’t tried that… I’ll try it now, because I’m curious)

Update

Okay, after a little test with a ChromeCast video and a Denon AVR-X 4400H

The amp was off (or at least in standby - passthru mode)

It was passing though the PVR channel (which was switched off), so nothing on my TV / monitor.

Pushing content to the ChromeCast forced the amp to change passthru channel, but it didn’t fully switch it on.

That’s probably a setting within the amp, rather than something ‘wrong’.

That said, are you talking about an audio only setup?

On most older devices, CEC is only enabled on one HDMI input (which will be marked as such). But that might be different with amps and newer TVs. It would be nice if it could just be enabled/disabled on every HDMI port in a device.

At this point, I think you can only find Chromecast Audios on the second-hand market. Very few people bought them, so Google slashed prices on the remaining stock last year to clear them out.

If an HDMI port is available, the regular ChromeCast might be a better choice anyway since the signal is fully digital (the CCA outputs to analog).

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If the receiver is currently playing audio, it would be disruptive but it’s a start.

Yes I would like an audio only set up.

Excellent comments, thanks Russell.

I’m really glad I bought mine when I did.

(Just dreading the day they are deprecated, like everything seems to be these days)

And optical digital via the same 3.5mm port.:wink:

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I knew that, but figured it would be even harder to find the cable that converts 3.5mm to optical. Did you pick one up with your CCA?

I meant 3.5mm fibre optic to TOSLink fiber optic

or you can use a standard TOSLink to TOSLink cable with a little adapter like this

https://uk.farnell.com/clever-little-box/sta-tsl001/adaptor-toslink-to-3-5mm/dp/1867788

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Ah, I didn’t realize it would work with any conversion cable. That’s good to know.

Does the CCA automatically detect when it needs to send a digital signal? I don’t recall seeing a toggle in the Google Home app.

It simply outputs both 24/7 from the same socket :smile:

It doesn’t convert anything, it’s just a fibre cable with connectors.

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Well, that just makes all kinds of sense!

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