Routing cast stream through C4 Inputs

[pdapice]

OK, so I am replacing my VSSL amps, which had a chrome cast audio instance for each zone. I liked this. but the Control4 experience with them is lacking.
So i find out that Snap has an alternative in the form of Episode stream boxes which will do an audio casting stream for android, with a robust C4 driver. Perfect.

My initial plan was to buy a box for each zone that I want to be able to cast to - plugged into my AudioControl matrixing amps.. This would work, in theory, without any issues. The problem is - that's a lot of boxes. at least 8 or 9. This makes for a potentially confusing cast list, a nightmare of rack cable management, and maybe $1800 in tiny little cast boxes.

I'll do it if i have to. 

But then i got to thinking, instead of doing that, could i get away with maybe just 2 boxes, routed into the C4 Controller inputs (EA5). 
I could easily name them Cast1 and Cast2 and then manually select that as the source before i cast. 
the only problem with this strategy is that it isn't as clean of a user experience. 
So I am wondering how I could implement this a little better.

For instance, each box could have a default room so that way the 2 areas i would use it most would automatically default there. 
My theory is that I could do some programming to say "if no zones are actively using this box when it starts streaming audio, then make it the audio source for the living room" or something along those lines

what i would REALLY like to be able to do is to find a way to trigger the stream to the room i want a little more automatically. I sense that there might be a way to do this or at least close to that solution.

anyone with any ideas or concepts for this that might work?

 

[msgreenf]

You laid out the 2 strategies... There is no other way I know of.