Another take on “12V” trigger/automation

[Apprentice]

I am using three pieces of equipment:

• Benchmark AHB2 – has input/output trigger;
• Cambridge Audio MXN10 – no trigger, no remote, just an app for control, WIFI;
• MiniDSP Flex – has remote, no trigger;

Objective – sequenced on/off of the whole system, one point of control (to the largest possible extent).

The Benchmark trigger input responds to 3.3 V logic and higher, VIL = 1.26 V, VIH = 2.7 V (according to the manual). As a result, the output of a Raspberry Pi GPIO can be used to turn on/off the Benchmark.

I had a Logitech Harmony One hub lying around – MiniDSP Flex exists in its database.

I am also running an instance of Home Assistant (HA) – which has Cambridge Audio and Logitech Harmony integrations.

Having the "infrastructure" I integrated everything in Home Assistant; an automation in HA runs a script on the Raspberry Pi (for the Benchmark) and sends direct commands to MiniDSP (via IR) and MXN10 (via WIFI).

To control the system, I am using a Philips Hue Dial – each button has several commands (e.g. play/pause/skip/previous/mute/input selection, depending on the device to be controlled and short/long press (MXN10/MiniDSP/power on and off for system), volume is via the dial (IKEA Symfonisk Gen 2 works as well). Of course, same commands can be triggered on phone/tablet via the HA instance or companion app.

Maybe there is something useful in this for similar circumstances.

 

[tw99]

I'd never consider buying any AV equipment now that didn't have Home Assistant support. It's a very flexible way of controlling things.

(BTW I created an HA Integration for the MiniDSP SHD series, but this relies on the embedded Volumio server, so wouldn't work with your Flex)