Smart speakers are great in some regards. They have voice assistants built-in and are always on and listening. But they lack the flexibility and modularity of the classic amplifier and passive speaker setup. I have just one pair of speakers for everything - Bluetooth, Chromecast and computer audio are my use-cases. But the only way to control my AD18 amplifier is manually, using an IR remote.

How can such a traditional speaker setup be automated to deliver some more smarts?

With an IR blaster and some setup, that’s how!...•••