A simple, light weight audio receiver with Bluetooth (A2DP), AirPlay, Spotify Connect and UPnP.
Devices like phones, tablets and computers can play audio via this receiver.
- Raspberry Pi with Bluetooth support (tested wth Raspberry Pi 3 and Zero W) or USB dongle
- Raspbian Stretch Lite (tested with November 2018 version)
- USB or I2S Audio adapter (tested with Adafruit USB Audio Adapter, pHAT DAC, and HifiBerry DAC+)
The installation script asks whether to install each component.
sudo apt update -y
sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install -y --no-install-recommends git
git clone https://github.com/nicokaiser/rpi-audio-receiver.git
cd rpi-audio-receiver
./install.sh
Sets hostname to e.g. airpi
, the visible device name ("pretty hostname") to AirPi
.
Sets up Bluetooth, adds a simple agent that accepts every connection, and enables audio playback through BlueALSA. A udev script is installed that disables discoverability while connected.
Installs Shairport Sync AirPlay Audio Receiver.
Installs Spotifyd, an open source Spotify client).
Installs gmrender-resurrect UPnP Renderer.
Installs snapclient, the client component of the Snapcast Synchronous multi-room audio player.
Some DACs tend to produce popping/clicking noises when switching from or to stand-by (i.e. when no sound is played). An optional aplay
service can be installed which always streams an empty bytestream to the DAC. This consumes some CPU but avoids clicks.
To avoid SD card corruption when powering off, you can boot Raspbian in read-only mode. This is described by Adafruit in this tutorial and cannot be undone.
- Only one Bluetooth device can be connected at a time, otherwise interruptions may occur.
- The device is always open, new clients can connect at any time without authentication.
- To permanently save paired devices, the Raspberry has to be switched to read-write mode (
mount -o remount,rw /
) until all devices have been paired once. - You might want to use a Bluetooth USB dongle or have the script disable Wi-Fi while connected (see
bluetooth-udev.sh
), as the BCM43438 (Raspberry Pi 3, Zero W) has severe problems with both switched on, see raspberrypi/linux/#1402.
These scripts are tested and work on a current (as of the current date) Raspbian setup on Raspberry Pi. Depending on your setup (board, configuration, sound module, Bluetooth adapter) and your preferences, you might need to adjust the scripts. They are held as simple as possible and can be used as a starting point for additional adjustments.
- BlueALSA: Bluetooth Audio ALSA Backend
- Shairport Sync: AirPlay Audio Receiver
- Spotifyd: open source Spotify client
- gmrender-resurrect: Headless UPnP Renderer
- Snapcast: Synchronous audio player
- pivumeter: ALSA plugin for displaying VU meters on various Raspberry Pi add-ons
- Adafruit: Read-Only Raspberry Pi