Yeah, they have a spotify connect plugin that works, but chromecast probably will not be supporter because google holds all of the cast keys and esphome/music assistant/ home assistant would have to register with them (and probably play the fees) i think
Yeah there are large threads on them but because the API has been developed for WiFi, moving to a mesh like ZigBee would be a substantial rewrite although matter would be a lot easier than ZigBee, which got written off a long time ago as just too large if I remember right.
It is also a huge project for people to start developing on, their core team isn’t massive, so there is a large barrier to entry for such a thing. It might be happening in the background though, no idea.
If esphome get matter and thread, the DIY smart home device ecosystem will go from great to amazing. Right now esphome just has trouble with truly low power devices due to WiFi, polling, standoff, sleep, etc… Matter instead of the esphome API will probably solve a lot of that.
To be fair though. The experience of google and Microsoft online word/spreadsheets/etc… also sucks ass on a smartphone. Much better, sure, but doing spreadsheets or writing a paper on a phone is a bad experience in general.
And then I get down voted for laughing when people say that they use AI for “general research” 🙄🙄🙄