I’m looking for a media player/OS for an ARM SBC that can stream from my navidrome (subsonic compatible) music server, and be controlled via either a web GUI or an android app. I’d love to hear what you guys came up with!
Currently really happy with my setup, I’m using Navidrome as my music server, along with Ultrasonic as my phone client.
I’ve set up a (dumb/analog) speaker system on my workshop, and I’d like to be able to listen to music there, but I don’t want to add a whole setup (be it an old laptop, or add kb/mouse, monitor and such) and my phone no loner has a 3.5mm jack.
I have a Raspberry Pi 3, an OrangePi Zero, and an OrangePi PC+. I’d rather use the zero or the PC+ since they’re kinda unstable/wonky and I don’t trust them anymore for stuff I want to keep running 24/7 (like pihole).
I’m open to testing other music servers (volumio maybe?) on my main homelab if that means having the ability to change the client/sink from the app/gui (something like what Spotify does, where you can pick from any client to stream to other clients/speakers)
I can’t answer your original question but I have had a lot of success using Logitech Media Server (LMS) or PiCorePlayer (same thing but all in one, server and end player). They are also known as Squeezebox.
I ran a server on a pi, then ran the player part on more Pis including a pi zero w which had PCP installed (but I just used the player part of it).
Squeezebox used to be a Logitech brand, you can still find them on eBay. They closed it down, but open sourced it and it was taken over by the OS community.
It looks shit. But there is a Material theme you can add that makes it look far nicer. It will run your own media from the server, but also other services like TuneIn Radio, Spotify, YouTube, BBC radio…
I ended up with it because there is a plugin that allows Google Home Minis to be used as end devices and I have 3 of them. So I had 6 end devices (3 Google, 3 Pis) and I could run them all together playing the same music throughout the house.
It’s a bit buggy sometimes, and it requires a fair bit of fiddling. I found that the Google devices would always be out of sync by a half second or so. But on the whole I loved it, and when my Dell Optiplex comes I intend to revive it on that.
While I was researching I found out about Squeezebox, as there are people using it in combination with HomeAssistant. Both solutions you and @cfi provided seem pretty doable, and I’ve already been tinkering with Mopidy on armbian. Snapcast is something I’ve never heard of, and I’m definetly going to tinker around it, I’d love to be able to sync several speakers around the house, specially for parties and gatherings.
That being said I think they are a bit overkill for the usecase, and I’m looking for something even simpler, maybe repurposing the guts of a cheap BT speaker I have lying around, see if I can find somewhere on the PCB where I can tap line level audio output and solder it directly inside the amp/sub box, along with a small power supply to run without batteries. (I know there are ready-made BT modules for this, but where’s the fun in that!)
Hah if you’ve been on Reddit and seen some of the posts about LMS and Home Assistant you’ve probably seen a bunch of my posts about it.
When I installed PCP on the Pi Zero W it was hooked up to a Bluetooth soundbar. There was no need for soldering a PCB in there. The pi3b I have upstairs was running though and old pair of PC speakers I found in a drawer, and the one in my kitchen was run though and old Bose surround sound system, via an electric drum kit I got my kid for his birthday. Meant we could put songs on Spotify through it and play along on the drums