Remote Controlled Streaming Speakers

For want of a better use of a spare Raspberry Pi Zero W and a set of LogitechZ-680 surround sound speakers, [Andre van Kammen] hacked them together to make them stream music playing from his phone.

It was stumbling across the Pi Music Box distribution that really got the ball rolling, and the purchase of a pHAT DAC laid the foundation. Cracking open the speakers’ controller case, [Kammen] was able to get 5V of power off some terminals even when the speakers were on standby — awesome! — which the Pi could use. Power and volume are controlled via the Pi’s GPIO pins with a diode to drop the voltage and prevent shorts.

Now, how to tell whether the speakers are on or off? Well, a pin on the display connector changes to 4.3V when it’s on, so wiring a 10k resistor and a diode to said pin is a hackable solution. Finishing off the wired connections, it proved possible to cram the pHAT DAC inside the controller case with the GPIO header sticking out the back to mount the Pi upon with no other external wires — double awesome!

A custom C++ daemon controls the volume, and a Python extension for Mopidy keeps the volume synched up. It’s set up to turn off after ten seconds of silence, but to turn it on, all [Kammen] has to do is hit play on his phone’s Mopidy app and enjoy.

The Raspberry Pi Zero lends itself to many impressive music streaming hacks, but there are other — more unconventional — methods to streaming your music at home.

16 thoughts on “Remote Controlled Streaming Speakers

    1. How about leaving something constructive instead of being a jerk ass…what pray tell would you have done differently? What makes it a waste?

      It sure looks like it does the job he wanted it to do from my screen. Do the world a favor and crawl back into reddit where you belong.

  1. I was holding my breath there for a second, only seeing the Pi Zero on the back, but reading on, he used a proper DAC. These pHAT DAC boards feature a Ti PCM5102A I2S DAC, look like a very capable puppy..

  2. This description reads like a modern day Rube Goldberg contraption. Just to do a simple task.

    I’ll KISS my sweet headphone cord and jack. Megahertz of bandwidth with no power penalty. Gets run thru a full PA, no crap layered on top of the sound.

    1. And how will that control the volume and power on the amplifier. And leave the music playing if i walk to my kitchen which is out of bluetooth range. Where will the bluetooth dongle get it’s power from, how do you control it from multiple phones.

      I thought Hackaday is a place where we appreciate hacks on existing hardware, but next time i will use a 555 timer ;)

  3. 1) Does anyone have any recommendations on a good Pi expansion for car audio? …4 channels, maybe a sub?

    2) Does anybody have any recommendations on how to get 5.1 audio (to a Logitech 5.1 desktop surround)

    (And yes, these are actually questions for 2 different projects rattling around upstairs- not planning on putting a Logitech 5.1 into my truck.)

    1. 1) so something like taking a 2 channel output, splitting it into two and using the GPIO/I2C to drive a digital pot wired betwen the front/rear split outputs ? Then plug into a 4 channel amp.

      2) use the HDMI output and get a HDMI to SPDIF box from ebay etc.

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