Loxone AV / music control

[Kristian Hackett]

Hi,

I am about to start renovating a house and am planning on having a fairly comprehensive loxone system. I am planning to have music in around 8 zones and a recessed cinema screen controlled by Loxone. Is it possible to use the loxone app to select the music that I currently have on iTunes? Can the app be used to select programs on sky etc?

Thank you

Kristian

[Simon Still]

On Thursday, 21 January 2016 12:03:37 UTC, Kristian Hackett wrote:

I am about to start renovating a house and am planning on having a fairly comprehensive loxone system. I am planning to have music in around 8 zones and a recessed cinema screen controlled by Loxone. Is it possible to use the loxone app to select the music that I currently have on iTunes? Can the app be used to select programs on sky etc?

Not easily.  Loxone config can send and receive UDP commands which offers potential to interface to anything that accepts them. 

For audio Loxone sell their own 'music server' system.  An alternative is to use Logitech Media Server (LMS) and Logitech Squeezeboxes - they're not made any more but the server software is open source and still available and you can either buy second hand players from eBay or build your own based on Raspberry Pi's 

https://www.avforums.com/threads/building-a-raspberry-pi-squeezebox-player-for-%C2%A3100.1957747/

I used LMS for nearly 10 years before I moved and sold the kit.  Still thinking about building some RPi players but at the moment Apple Airplay (on a Yamaha AV amp and an Apple TV) are working well enough.  The Yamaha AV Amp http://uk.yamaha.com/en/products/audio-visual/av-receivers-amps/rx-s601d_g/?mode=model has it's own iPhone app but can also be controlled through a browser.  Yamaha will provide the protocol and at some point I'm going to try to add some control through Loxone.

However, I'm slightly dubious as to the benefits of getting it all working in Loxone - whilst you *can* use the Loxone app to control things I think that will be a rarity - it's much more convenient to use a switch on the wall than to unlock a phone and select the Loxone app.  If you are using your phone it's a quick to select a different app for, say, music, as it is to find a different room or category in Loxone and it's unlikely you'll be able to get Loxone working as well as a dedicated app. 

At the moment I'm using Logitech Harmony remotes to control my AV kit, The Harmony Smart Control has a good basic remote and also a decent Smartphone app and you can pick it up for about £70.  The 'Ultimate' has a much flasher remote with a touch screen but I'm actually finding the simple remote better to use.  I use Harmony to switch the amp on and adjust the volume and to control Blu Ray and Sky.  To choose music I use the Apple Remote app. 

 

[TomM]

Kristian,

I think this is a really interesting point about Loxone.  Firstly, there is no doubt for maximum and easy integration the CasaTunes based Loxone Music Server is the best.  I don't have one but can see how it works and sure it integrates well.  However I find it expensive for what it is and primarily it's a music jukebox for people who have a significant local music collection.  However I don't have many MP3s any longer and I stream all of my music over Spotify (whcih you can do with Loxone of course) so I don't need a whacking great harddrive or similar.  Also remember that the Loxone Music Server pumps out line level signal, so you need another amplifier before connecting your speakers.  Also note, this does not solve any video distribution whatsoever. 

I find this all a bit unnecessary.  What I have instead put together is a stack of Denon AVR-X2000 amps each of which gives me 2 zones controllable over IP (and therefore loxone).  Using a bit of logic I can easily control each zones power, volume, source and if i'm really clever I can setup lots of control logic to make multiple zones work together or similar multiroom functionality.  This means I have the source switching and amplification under control which is nearly everything that the loxone does, except for serving up content.  This costs about £100 per zone (plus whatever speakers you want/need).

So, for serving up my content I use a combination of sky box (HD TV + Radio) + amazon fire tv (spotify, airplay + youtube etc).  In my case, I have 1 'whole house' sky box and each TV zone has it's own amazon fire TV and we have 1 more amazon fire tv used as a 'whole house' device.  Each of these 'whole house devices' is connected to an HDMI splitter with each amp taking a feed from each device.  This creates a robust, low cost and very flexible HD AV matrix which is what is the most valuable part of any multi zone AV system.  I can easily change source devices as trends change too.

Whilst this appears a bit homemade, I would suggest there is no real config overhead to this, my comms with amps is 2-way and the control is highly robust.  I have found that sometimes the genuine denon app doesn't see the amps correctly however the Loxone is still able to read/write to the amps.

Having lived with a Systemline multi room AV and investigated many others I can confirm that this methodology provides many more features and flexibility than a proprietary system (I could even mix and match amps and splitters without any major issue).

With regards to control interface.  I would not recommend more than just power, source, volume and maybe channel change without using a different 3rd party interface to control it.  That said I haven't investigated the media controller much recently so maybe thats something useful.

[Kristian Hackett]

Thank you for the info. My music is stored on iTunes on an iMac at the moment. I can get it to sync to an Apple TV or something similar. If I purchased loxones music server would it be able to play whatever was on my iTunes account through Apple TV or would I have to upload everything onto the loxone music server? Do you know if the server is compatible with Apple Music? I signed up to this a couple of months ago. If not I will look into Spotify.

Sorry for the basic questions. I've downloaded the loxone demo phone app to play around with and I can get my head around how Loxone operates for the lights, heating, blinds etc but trying to work out the logistics for integrating with my music / TV etc.

Thank you.

[TomM]

No idea with regards to the Apple TV and Apple Music questions, although these are not indicated as compatible on the product page.  Don't forget the Loxone Music Server is just modified CasaTunes installation on a decent media centre PC with several multi channel audio cards installed.  Its definitely worth talking to Loxone directly (or CaseTunes) to confirm this.

If I were doing this, if you already have your music playable on an Apple TV then I would be looking to see the best way to distribute the single ATV audio+video signal around your zones.  You could easily get 8 zones using a 1 to 8 HDMI splitter into amps as described in previous post.

This all being said, there's quite a lot more functionality that the Music Server provides so you may find it more valuable to you than it would be to me.

[Kristian Hackett]

Thank you for your help. I hadn't come across casatunes before. I've had a bit of a read up on it and it should sync and update my iTunes library directly onto the server whenever I turn my computer on. That's presuming loxone haven't altered the servers much and they still run basically as a casatunes server.

http://www.casatunes.com/multi-room-audio/index.php/tech-docs/sync/

[TomM]

great, I would definitely check with Loxone to ensure this is the case (I would expect it to be ok).  If you haven't already contacted Loxone, they are a really helpful bunch and as part of their service they will help you plan your installation at no cost.  We also went to their UK office to play with the kit before we committed as I was dubious as to whether Loxone was as robust and responsive as advertised (it pretty much is and I'm very happy to have it running my family home infrastructure).

[Kristian Hackett]

I was planning on going to Reading to have a look at the setup. With regards to Loxone helping out with a free design service, how easy is it to instal? I was planning on using a Loxone partner to plan and fit everything. Is it easy enough to instal and program without using a Loxone partner? I would presume the installation adds a significant chunk to the price. My house is a bungalow so all the cabling can be run through the loft space.

[markfisherg]

Hi Tom,

This seems like an excellent solution. A couple of questions if i may?

How do you control each remote source from each different zone (room) i.e. Sky, PSP etc. 

Do I have to use a Loxone  server or is this just a nice to have?

Thanks

Mark

[TomM]

Mark,

Sorry for delayed reply.  Here are the remote sources we use and how I control them:

SkyHD - use magic eyes connected to the standard coax aerial network.  This allows you to control a single sky box with the original remote.  We can also use the sky app on phones/tablet.  If you were to have multiple sky boxes, your best bet would be to control over IP though.

Amazon Fire/Chromecast - just use the app.

DVD/BluRay - all over IP with functions built into virtual outputs on the Loxone.

TVs & Amps - (not a source, but needs control of course) - all over IP with main functions controlled by Loxone.  I've setup shortcuts to enable scenarios and then use the media controller to provide all granular control options.

I continue to think that a 3rd party control app that provides a much better/customisable interface is the best way forward for AV control.  I will certainly be investigating that thoroughly for the cinema room.  If you were to go this route then all AV functionality would be independent of the Loxone however to do any of the lighting/heating/blinds etc control you would of course need a miniserver (or other control system).

Tom

[yesimag]

Thanks for the info Tom, I'll certainly be bugging you more about details when I get to the a/v side of my current project.

[Duncan]

there are many choices for multi-room audio now, of which sonos if probably one of the better know, but expensive and great sounding - this can be controlled from loxone at a very basic level like play/pause, next, volume etc but you still need the proper app for music selection

the same applies for logitech, where the lms can be controlled at a room level from loxone, but you need the duet remote or app for full control.
logitech music server can sync with your itunes music and playlists on a scheduled basis, so it automatically picks up all your music etc from itunes which makes life much easier - sonos can do the same

as far as i know, apple allows multiple rooms to play the same music from itunes using airport express or airplay speakers, but not true multi-room with different rooms playing different music at the same time

i would agree that for av control, then the logitech remotes are unbeatable unless you go down the control4 route which is very expensive. if you want true multi-room video, then you really need to go down the route of a video matrix, but they are expensive, difficult to get working reliably and have significant drawbacks if you have different resolution tvs. even hdbaset can fail with gigabit wiring, as the wiring runs at 10gbits and any sharp bends or torturous wiring routes can cause it to fail.

one very new, cheap (for video) and elegant solution is the new sky q system - the main box can record 4 programs and watch a fifth, and you can connect multiple sky q mini boxes using either ethernet or its own built in wireless networking. you can watch sky in any 3 locations at once, with all the scheduling and recording on the main box so accessible from any of the mini boxes, with the sky remotes controlling the mini boxes which are small  enough to mount behind wall mounted tvs. combine this with smart tvs which can play video from a nas or stream eg from netflix or amazon.

if you combine sky q with a nas to store videos, smart tvs and logitech remotes, you can have multiple locations watching sky, your recordings, videos from the nas and streamed video/films with a single elegant remote with proper buttons and very little in the way of obvious wiring and boxes.

ive been using logitech media server and squeezeboxes for a number of years, went to sonos then back to wired squeezeboxes when sonos wireless proved to be less than reliable for streaming bbc radio stations  (i use squeezebox duets with proper remote controls rather than apps as it just makes for a better user experience).
my lms installation allows integration with apple airplay devices and chromecast audio devices as well as software players, and allows me to stream from apple players eg iphones and ipods to the lms players all over the house

having failed to get an hdbaset video matrix to work reliably even over cat7 due to cable bend issues (note to self, test cables to hdbaset standard before plastering), ive installed sky q with logitech remotes and been extremely pleased with the results.

the logitech remotes talk wireless to the hub, which talks IR or bluetooth to your devices - so you can have your AV kit out of sight in a cupboard with just a single hdmi cable from av amp to tv built in to the wall, and speaker wires back to your av amp in the cupboard - no wires on show at all but full control of your devices using a proper hand held remote that can be pointed anywhere

[TomM]

Some good points and viable options there Duncan, however I do want to disagree with this statement "if you want true multi-room video, then you really need to go down the route of a video matrix" - this is simply just one possibility.  As discussed in one of my earlier posts, we have a stack of AV amps, all IP controlled which are fed by low cost HDMI splitters so every amp has all sources available and then the amp does the source switching.  This creates our own 4K audio/video true matrix where we can start watching in one room, pause, and finish watching in another room with very little effort.

Having had experience with various video matrices in the past (inc some really bloody expensive ones) I can happily say that our setup is just as reliable and took absolutely no more time to set up at all from a pure programming point of view.

The other thing I would like to point out is that there is often no need use cat5/6/7 for "long" HDMI runs, just use a long HDMI cable instead! They are relatively cheap now and don't require any baluns either end to convert signal.  Of course it really is dependent on the route the cable needs to take but I found i often overestimated the length of a run significantly.  For example, my longest run uses a 20m HDMI cable however I have 10m of the stuff coiled up at the hub because my house isn't actually as big as I think it is!

That said, we've run cat6 to all TV points too because I love the thought of the HDBaseT goal which is to transport all data AND power on a single cat6/7 cable and plug directly into the TV as a single cable.  Are there actually any TVs out yet that achieve this?!

[yesimag]

I'm probably going to be going that route tom.  I just purchased one of denons ip enabled receivers to test out.  Here's the situation I'm in.. since its a spec house the owner wants to show the prospective buyer a bit of its capability without spending tens of thousands on av gear they may or may not even want/use.  When the house sells, I'll setup whatever system they(we) can dream up.  Lord knows they'll have the money.

However I'd like to go a step further than just the ability to stop and restart what you were watching when you move about the house. I'd like this to happen automatically, or with a single touch, depending if the specific user already had something on.  From the time you walk in the building, one of the loxone buttons or an nfc tag will activate your personal stream, whatever that may be.  Autoplay your netflix queue, keep up on your bloomberg, etc.  When you enter a room which already has something playing by another user, it wouldn't change it of course.  I'd like to use a combination of NFC tags and bluetooth receivers to detect the location of your mobile to require as little user input as possible.  Then after a given timeout period, (and when no motion has been detected) the tv in the room you vacated would turn off to save power.  I'll be putting several tablets around, in hallways, the kitchen, the elevator, etc. So I'd like to send a feed to those with dlna/ airplay/whatever but have it switch back to the tablet/web app/custom interface when a user wasn't requesting a stream.  Probably use one or more rackmount servers and virtualization or multiple desktops to accomplish this.

While I agree with running hdmi where possible, it simply wasn't on this job.  This building is all open floor plan and balloon framed so it meant lots of steel columns and very few routes around them, and I didn't exactly feel like drilling them.  This meant most of my runs are 100+ feet.  I ran two strands of cat6 to each intended tv location (about 15 of them) and a ton of cat5e everywhere else in the building.  In total I used in excess of 60k feet of low voltage cabling including oxygen free speaker wire to every conceivable zone.. So my options should be pretty open no matter which route the buyer goes.