Comment by hedora
18 hours ago
I think I found a use case, but would love to be proven wrong with some faster / cheaper approach:
I've tired of buying S1 compatible sonos speakers on ebay, so I'd like to build a speaker enclosure with a WiFi device that has a high-quality DAC and the ability to use pipewire or similar to do real-time DSP and multi-room audio sync.
A RPI + third party hat should work well for this, or so I am told.
I have spent 100$+ on multiple esp32s3 amplifiers instead with multiple software solutions ready to flash and be up and running in no time.
https://sonocotta.com/esp-products/
Now I have a wifi radio running in homeassistant. Running my own (music only) radios with azuracast. Loud enough for high quality 30+ year old 10kg 100/140 Watt speakers. Next step is making a remote for it, cheap ikea one with two buttons or a tap dial with more.
This sounds like a great approach to me. I've thought some kind of pi zero 2w based smart speaker system would be an awesome project for a while. I am having a difficult time imagining a cheaper option, especially if you want something like the hat ecosystem.