Making my own Sonos alternativeĪll told, I spent less than $80 on this project. And when my DAC hat arrives, there are some things I need to tweak to get balenaSound to play with that properly. I have noticed that there's a delay with Spotify Connect, but I'm still playing with my config to see what I can figure out. There are several more variables to play with, like setting a custom input loopback latency to help with skipping. This is where you'll find the logs, access to the terminal (over SSH), service status, and the local (and public) IP address. In addition to the fleet summary, there's a device summary section where you view each device's stats. Click that, and set a new name for that particular Pi. Click the Device Variables menu option You'll see the SOUND_DEVICE_NAME variable here that you just set, but then there's an Override button. If you have multiple Raspberry Pis and you want them all to be separate names, go back to the dashboard and click the blue hyperlink with the device's name. In the Value box, set whatever your want your speaker group to be.īear in mind that this is global for the whole fleet. In the Name section, type SOUND_DEVICE_NAME. Leave the Service section as All services. I wanted to change it to something different, which requires setting an environment variable.įrom the left menu of your balena-sound fleet dashboard, click Variables. For me, I didn't like the random target name in Spotify Connect and AirPlay. From here, you can manage the balenaSound instance and control the host.īut you may not necessarily be satisfied with how things are. You should see it appear on your dashboard after the Raspberry Pi boots (this can take a few minutes). Out of the box, balenaSound should work as long as you have the network settings correct. If you have a DAC hat like the IQAudio DAC Pro, you can use RCA audio cables. With the basic configuration, you will use the Raspberry Pi's onboard audio via the 3.5mm headphone jack. Plug in the power supply and connect the audio cable to your speakers. Eject the microSD card and install it into the Raspberry Pi's slot (on the underside of the board).Ĩ. Flash the image, either through the Flash button or with the downloaded image file.ħ. This will take you to a fleet creation dialog. Using the provided link, deploy balenaSound. 3.5mm or RCA audio cables (if using a supported DAC)įurthermore, you will need the following software:ġ.A power supply (check which one you need for your Pi).You will need the following parts to get started: How to make your own Sonos-like smart speaker using a Raspberry Pi It also helps that the documentation for balenaSound is quite solid, so don't be afraid to do some reading. There are configurations you can tinker with, but the basics are quite easy to deploy. That should be fine for most residential purposes.Īssuming you have the parts I'll layout below, you can be up and running in about 10 minutes. Keep in mind that with the free tier, you're limited to 10 devices on balenaCloud. I'd be more than happy to cover the licensing fee Google charges to turn my speakers into Cast targets. In fact, the only thing I wish balenaSound had is Google Cast. You have Wi-Fi speakers that support AirPlay, Spotify Connect, UPnP and Bluetooth (and there's snapcast support, too). Slap that into your Raspberry Pi, hook up the speakers, and boom. You'll walk through the steps of creating a project, customize the OS image, and flash it to your microSD card. The OS uses the OpenVPN protocol to create a secure connection to your dashboard for deployments and management. To manage your instance of balenaSound (or any other balena IoT project), you'll control it through the balenaCloud portal. It's a Docker container that runs on top of balenaOS, an operating system designed specifically for deploying Internet of Things (IoT) in containers. When coupled with a Raspberry Pi, it turns regular old speakers into Wi-Fi speakers with multi-room capabilities like Sonos. This is balenaSound, an audio streamer that supports single- and multi-room layouts. In fact, there are several others, but one in particular caught my eye (well, two, but I digress). My balenaSound dashboard (Image credit: Tom's Guide)īut Etcher isn't the only project that balena has going on.
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