For the house wide audio, intercom, door and gate communications I decided to give HTD a run. They have a great integrated solution that is end user installed and configured, no cloud resources needed, and just enough zones to make it work in the new house. I’ll have 12 zones driving 46 speakers with 14 in wall touch pads.
In a number of locations around the house I will have the wall mounted touch panels that gives you access to music/sound for all zones, plus intercom, front door and gate access, and access paging. All of these functions can also be done from an app on various ipads laying around the house.
When I did the wiring I ran each room speaker wires to a wall box location, and from there back to the media closet along with a cat6. The touch pad uses the cat 6, and the speaker wire path allows me to add local analog volume controls in places I might not put a touch pad.
The only gotcha is the gate control stuff, which I will have to do some ‘enhancements’ to give the distance to the gate. More on that as I dig into it.