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Show HN: Multi-room audio with Snapcast and Raspberry Pi

215 points by elgfare 6y ago

notadog 6y ago
This looks like an interesting project. I found the naming creative: (S)y(n)chronous (a)udio (p)layer.
- IshKebab 6y ago
  Could have gone with Synaps. Synchronous Audio Playing System.
DenseComet 6y ago
Snapcast seems to also have integrations with Airplay and Home Assistant. This post is also quite nice, I've saved it to use as reference for whenever I get around to setting up Snapcast.
Normal_gaussian 6y ago
I've recently had some time to go through a spate of "home improvement" (needless tinkering) tech projects. Replacing alexa and ok google devices with open source ones was on the list. This looks great for the music - though I was mainly stuck for good voice control.
- gibs0ns 6y ago
  Check out Rhasspy for voice control. IMO it's the best FOSS solution available for this atm. https://rhasspy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ https://rhasspy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
bsanr2 6y ago
The holy grail for cheap-ass networked audio is a surround-sound set constructed from random (or a set of) Bluetooth speakers and some sort of wireless receiver. I can't tell you how many people came into my old workplace expected that to be possible, and being disappointed that the only options were somewhat expensive demi-audiophile WiFi-based (read: hooked into an app that required an internet connection and sometimes iOS) solutions from Sonos/Bose/B&W/Klipsch that locked you into their platform. IIUC latency and bandwidth are an issue? This is a cool step in the right direction though.
- ngcc_hk 6y ago
  Sad even closed like HomePod which evaluates sound in a room and adjust its sound acoustics go nowhere
- IshKebab 6y ago
  Why isn't that possible? It doesn't sound like it would be that hard.
  - bsanr2 6y ago
    I thought so too, but then, I could never manage it myself. I imagine a solution would be to build a receiver with a Bluetooth antenna for each channel, so that it would be device-agnostic, and a mic port for calibration. Maybe a traditional RCA port for a powered subwoofer. But if it were so simple, I'm sure someone would have done it by now. There may also be weird licensing issues involved, like perhaps Dolby/DTS don't want to certify such a system, and so access to whatever you need to decode their signals isn't readily available.
    - IshKebab 6y ago
      I'm not sure you'd even need separate Bluetooth chips/antennas. In theory one device can connect to up to 7 others. Although, to be fair Bluetooth audio streaming is barely reliable with one device so maybe that is just asking too much of it. Apparently Samsung phones can connect to two devices: https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-connect-multiple-bluetooth-speakers-4173788 https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-connect-multiple-bluetooth-s... Here's another one: https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/30/tempow-turns-your-dumb-bluetooth-speakers-into-a-connected-sound-system/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/30/tempow-turns-your-dumb-blu...
      - elgfare 6y ago
        I think Bluetooth is just getting there now, so we will probably see more of this going forward. https://www.bluetooth.com/learn-about-bluetooth/bluetooth-technology/le-audio/ https://www.bluetooth.com/learn-about-bluetooth/bluetooth-te...
acidburnNSA 6y ago
I use Snapcast and mopidy on a home server with the iris front end. It integrates with home assistant so you can have automations play sounds in all or some rooms. With covid I've been able to pipe my meetings to snapcast from the web browser (listen only) which is great for restroom breaks and snacks in long unengaging meetings. I rigged up a AC sniffer circuit and wifi microcontroller to my dumb doorbell which snapcasts a recording of a doorbell chime throughout the house when it's pressed so I can hear it when music is playing. Snapcast can also stream to a phone, so I can Bluetooth into the hot tub speakers and have it on the whole house audio too. Open source home automation with home assistant and this tech is really fun if you want to get into it as a hobby. Certainly requires work, but that's fun for me. I also have it all integrated into a home-brew weather station and an indoor air quality sensor system with co2 and pm levels so I can get alerts to open windows or turn on fans if co2 gets too high. I also get raindrop noises when it starts raining so I go close the windows. Fun times. Of course there's a security system involved too which arms at night and when the family's WiFi all disconnects. It disarms automatically based on WiFi auth and an openwrt script, so it's totally autonomous. Works very well. Working on a tensorflow based automation now to have the front door camera detect packages and send email alerts. Does not work at all, yet. All local, all self-hosted, with a bridged MQTT server on a VPS for communicating with my location tracker and my mom's house (I get alerts if she's on vacation and the furnace dies or basement floods or there's a break in or whatever). I vpn in to my router to control things when out. But if internet dies at home, everything local still works great. Mopidy also connects to Spotify, of course. https://mopidy.com/ext/iris/ https://mopidy.com/ext/iris/ https://www.home-assistant.io/ https://www.home-assistant.io/
- jcims 6y ago
  Have you done any tinkering with node-red yet? It’s pretty handy for tying stuff like that together and runs nicely on a pi (incl mqtt integration for esp/arduino/sonoff integration)
  - acidburnNSA 6y ago
    I have not. I do it all in yaml still, which I feel like I like. I've seen some pics of node-red graphs and it looks pretty slick though.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hanklazard 6y ago
Volumio’s pi OS is a pretty easy way to do this. There’s a Snapcast plugin on github along with instructions. Pair the pi with a hifiberry amp and some speakers and you’ve got your own custom networked audio client. We’ve got sync’d audio running in 4 different rooms at home and control via home assistant. Not as easy as Sonos I’m sure but I like that I can use whatever speakers I want.
aidos 6y ago
After kicking around a bunch of these solutions and discovering that none of them work quite right or you still have to spend quite a bit on the hardware, I eventually bent the knee to Sonos recently. The interface is pretty garbage, but it just works and the sound quality is good. Part of it was that I just don’t think I could face the wrath of my family when it didn’t work. I guess you get to a point in life when you have kids, and hours for tinkering are reduced so you need to pick your battles. I like the Snapcast model though, it follows the Linux philosophy. From memory the audio stream is basically just wrapped along with a time stamp. Then you transfer those blocks to another device that plays them at the right time (where they’re unwrapped back into an audio stream).
- gingerlime 6y ago
  I think I'm in the same boat. I have a rpi, installed home assistant before, I do devOps/sysadmin stuff, setting up virtual machines, docker, creating and contributing to open source etc etc... ... buuuuuuuut, having looked at the article, my eyes started to glaze over, and a sinking despair sipped in quickly... I want to love this, but I just can't bring myself to. I guess I'm at this point of giving in and getting a Sonos :(
  - elgfare 6y ago
    I get that. It's not exactly easy. But FWIW it seems quite stable, I'm not having to SSH in and restart services like i did when i tried a year ago. IMO snapcast, librespot, and hifiberry should all get fully integrated into raspbian so that it's easier to set up. Regarding cost, yeah i think it's only significantly cheaper than Sonos for the same quality if you can configure some of your existing setups to become clients.
- lh7777 6y ago
  I've had a Sonos system for maybe 5 years and just started dismantling it a week ago. The hardware is great, but the apps have always been terrible -- they add just enough friction that I've been subconsciously avoiding using the system for some time now. If you're into voice control, it's probably OK, but I'm not interested in that. The Spotify app (via Spotify Connect) is probably the best interface for Sonos, but I'm not a big Spotify fan and want to be able to easily play from other sources. I also looked into DIY options and came to the same conclusions about reliability and time spent fiddling with it. We have mostly Apple devices, so I decided to just give Airplay 2 a shot. I bought a used Airport Express for our living room hi-fi system and a portable Libratone Zipp speaker to use elsewhere (it's in the kitchen right now). If the system continues to work as well as it has over the past week, I'll probably get a couple more Zipps. But because it has its own battery power, it's easy to just unplug and carry it to where I need it, so I don't think we'll need one for every room like we did for Sonos.
acd 6y ago
Nice article you can hook up studio monitors like genelec 8010 for a very good sounding setup. Monitors will Likely last a lifetime so better for the environment.

215 points by elgfare 6y ago

notadog 6y ago

This looks like an interesting project. I found the naming creative: (S)y(n)chronous (a)udio (p)layer.

IshKebab 6y ago
Could have gone with Synaps. Synchronous Audio Playing System.

DenseComet 6y ago

Snapcast seems to also have integrations with Airplay and Home Assistant. This post is also quite nice, I've saved it to use as reference for whenever I get around to setting up Snapcast.

Normal_gaussian 6y ago

I've recently had some time to go through a spate of "home improvement" (needless tinkering) tech projects. Replacing alexa and ok google devices with open source ones was on the list. This looks great for the music - though I was mainly stuck for good voice control.

gibs0ns 6y ago
Check out Rhasspy for voice control. IMO it's the best FOSS solution available for this atm. https://rhasspy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ https://rhasspy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

bsanr2 6y ago

The holy grail for cheap-ass networked audio is a surround-sound set constructed from random (or a set of) Bluetooth speakers and some sort of wireless receiver. I can't tell you how many people came into my old workplace expected that to be possible, and being disappointed that the only options were somewhat expensive demi-audiophile WiFi-based (read: hooked into an app that required an internet connection and sometimes iOS) solutions from Sonos/Bose/B&W/Klipsch that locked you into their platform. IIUC latency and bandwidth are an issue? This is a cool step in the right direction though.

ngcc_hk 6y ago
Sad even closed like HomePod which evaluates sound in a room and adjust its sound acoustics go nowhere
IshKebab 6y ago
Why isn't that possible? It doesn't sound like it would be that hard.
- bsanr2 6y ago
  I thought so too, but then, I could never manage it myself. I imagine a solution would be to build a receiver with a Bluetooth antenna for each channel, so that it would be device-agnostic, and a mic port for calibration. Maybe a traditional RCA port for a powered subwoofer. But if it were so simple, I'm sure someone would have done it by now. There may also be weird licensing issues involved, like perhaps Dolby/DTS don't want to certify such a system, and so access to whatever you need to decode their signals isn't readily available.
  - IshKebab 6y ago
    I'm not sure you'd even need separate Bluetooth chips/antennas. In theory one device can connect to up to 7 others. Although, to be fair Bluetooth audio streaming is barely reliable with one device so maybe that is just asking too much of it. Apparently Samsung phones can connect to two devices: https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-connect-multiple-bluetooth-speakers-4173788 https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-connect-multiple-bluetooth-s... Here's another one: https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/30/tempow-turns-your-dumb-bluetooth-speakers-into-a-connected-sound-system/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/30/tempow-turns-your-dumb-blu...
    - elgfare 6y ago
      I think Bluetooth is just getting there now, so we will probably see more of this going forward. https://www.bluetooth.com/learn-about-bluetooth/bluetooth-technology/le-audio/ https://www.bluetooth.com/learn-about-bluetooth/bluetooth-te...

acidburnNSA 6y ago

I use Snapcast and mopidy on a home server with the iris front end. It integrates with home assistant so you can have automations play sounds in all or some rooms. With covid I've been able to pipe my meetings to snapcast from the web browser (listen only) which is great for restroom breaks and snacks in long unengaging meetings. I rigged up a AC sniffer circuit and wifi microcontroller to my dumb doorbell which snapcasts a recording of a doorbell chime throughout the house when it's pressed so I can hear it when music is playing. Snapcast can also stream to a phone, so I can Bluetooth into the hot tub speakers and have it on the whole house audio too. Open source home automation with home assistant and this tech is really fun if you want to get into it as a hobby. Certainly requires work, but that's fun for me. I also have it all integrated into a home-brew weather station and an indoor air quality sensor system with co2 and pm levels so I can get alerts to open windows or turn on fans if co2 gets too high. I also get raindrop noises when it starts raining so I go close the windows. Fun times. Of course there's a security system involved too which arms at night and when the family's WiFi all disconnects. It disarms automatically based on WiFi auth and an openwrt script, so it's totally autonomous. Works very well. Working on a tensorflow based automation now to have the front door camera detect packages and send email alerts. Does not work at all, yet. All local, all self-hosted, with a bridged MQTT server on a VPS for communicating with my location tracker and my mom's house (I get alerts if she's on vacation and the furnace dies or basement floods or there's a break in or whatever). I vpn in to my router to control things when out. But if internet dies at home, everything local still works great. Mopidy also connects to Spotify, of course. https://mopidy.com/ext/iris/ https://mopidy.com/ext/iris/ https://www.home-assistant.io/ https://www.home-assistant.io/

jcims 6y ago
Have you done any tinkering with node-red yet? It’s pretty handy for tying stuff like that together and runs nicely on a pi (incl mqtt integration for esp/arduino/sonoff integration)
- acidburnNSA 6y ago
  I have not. I do it all in yaml still, which I feel like I like. I've seen some pics of node-red graphs and it looks pretty slick though.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

hanklazard 6y ago

Volumio’s pi OS is a pretty easy way to do this. There’s a Snapcast plugin on github along with instructions. Pair the pi with a hifiberry amp and some speakers and you’ve got your own custom networked audio client. We’ve got sync’d audio running in 4 different rooms at home and control via home assistant. Not as easy as Sonos I’m sure but I like that I can use whatever speakers I want.

aidos 6y ago

After kicking around a bunch of these solutions and discovering that none of them work quite right or you still have to spend quite a bit on the hardware, I eventually bent the knee to Sonos recently. The interface is pretty garbage, but it just works and the sound quality is good. Part of it was that I just don’t think I could face the wrath of my family when it didn’t work. I guess you get to a point in life when you have kids, and hours for tinkering are reduced so you need to pick your battles. I like the Snapcast model though, it follows the Linux philosophy. From memory the audio stream is basically just wrapped along with a time stamp. Then you transfer those blocks to another device that plays them at the right time (where they’re unwrapped back into an audio stream).

gingerlime 6y ago
I think I'm in the same boat. I have a rpi, installed home assistant before, I do devOps/sysadmin stuff, setting up virtual machines, docker, creating and contributing to open source etc etc... ... buuuuuuuut, having looked at the article, my eyes started to glaze over, and a sinking despair sipped in quickly... I want to love this, but I just can't bring myself to. I guess I'm at this point of giving in and getting a Sonos :(
- elgfare 6y ago
  I get that. It's not exactly easy. But FWIW it seems quite stable, I'm not having to SSH in and restart services like i did when i tried a year ago. IMO snapcast, librespot, and hifiberry should all get fully integrated into raspbian so that it's easier to set up. Regarding cost, yeah i think it's only significantly cheaper than Sonos for the same quality if you can configure some of your existing setups to become clients.
lh7777 6y ago
I've had a Sonos system for maybe 5 years and just started dismantling it a week ago. The hardware is great, but the apps have always been terrible -- they add just enough friction that I've been subconsciously avoiding using the system for some time now. If you're into voice control, it's probably OK, but I'm not interested in that. The Spotify app (via Spotify Connect) is probably the best interface for Sonos, but I'm not a big Spotify fan and want to be able to easily play from other sources. I also looked into DIY options and came to the same conclusions about reliability and time spent fiddling with it. We have mostly Apple devices, so I decided to just give Airplay 2 a shot. I bought a used Airport Express for our living room hi-fi system and a portable Libratone Zipp speaker to use elsewhere (it's in the kitchen right now). If the system continues to work as well as it has over the past week, I'll probably get a couple more Zipps. But because it has its own battery power, it's easy to just unplug and carry it to where I need it, so I don't think we'll need one for every room like we did for Sonos.

acd 6y ago

Nice article you can hook up studio monitors like genelec 8010 for a very good sounding setup. Monitors will Likely last a lifetime so better for the environment.