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raspi webradio player
Last update: Tue Nov 28 13:28:49 2023
A Raspberry pi zero W used as a WebRadio player! Because I can't work without music and turning on the PC to open Youtube is taking too much of my productivity away. So webradio looks like the way to go!
Presentation
Principle
Seems you just need to MPD/MPC to play the web streams, a way to output the sound (I have somewhere an eBay soundcard or default sound output?), a display of what is the current track, and some way to control it (change station at least).Points of interrest
Implementation
Bill of materials
Schematics
Make sound from a raspi zero without soundcard
Explained here and here, you need to redirect 2 pins on their alternate pin, and make a small low/high pass filter with resistors and caps.User account "radio" preparation
Because you should never run any non-interactive program with sudoer-rights account (root, pi, ...) so make a separate account that has the minimum necessary rights.
#make a user named "radio"
sudo adduser radio
#add user to the audio group if you want sound :)
sudo usermod -a -G audio radio
#add user to the netdev group if you want to access the internet
sudo usermod -a -G netdev radio
#add user to the gpio gorup to acces GPIO for the buttons
sudo usermod -a -G gpio radio
#add user to the i2c group to acces I2C bus for the screen
sudo usermod -a -G i2c radio
#allow user radio to shutdown the machine
# 1- sudo visudo
# 2- add line
radio ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /sbin/poweroff, /sbin/reboot, /sbin/shutdown
#add to your .bashrc the below 2 lines to start pulseaudio as a user daemon (apparently it shouldn't be a system daemon)
#START PULSEAUDIO as a per user daemon
pulseaudio -D
Source code : with VLC
VLS is more power hungry but this Raspi will only play radio so... even if it uses 40% CPU, it won't make a difference.
#install VLC and pulseaudio
sudo apt-get install vlc pulseaudio
vlc your-URL-here -I dummy vlc your-URL-here -I dummy --verbose=2amixer -D pulse sset Master 85%amixer -D pulse sset Master 7%+Source code : with MPC
MPC/MPD does work, though I used VLC because it's simpler to configure. However as far as I tested the below setup works, you can take it from there and finish. I ended up uninstalling it because mpd was consuming the CPU though I don't use it.
#install MPC/MPD to play the audio streams
sudo apt-get install mpc mpd
edit the etc mpd.conf change the folder for music and add correct HW -> hw:1,0
list hw avec aplay -l
put files in fodler
mpc add / (add all)
mpc play
mpc volume 100
Display screen
Using a small 2.13 inch I2C SSD1306 (address 0x3c) with Adafruit library (for python3):sudo apt-get install python-pip python3-pip sudo python -m pip install --upgrade pip setuptools wheel #doesn't work - unmaintained since 2014 #sudo pip install Adafruit-SSD1306 sudo pip3 install adafruit-circuitpython-ssd1306 sudo python3 -m pip install pillow sudo pip3 install futures #install necessary packages sudo apt-get install python-smbus python3-smbus #to check that you can see the 0x3c on the I2C bus #1 i2cdetect 1Now the Ladyada code should work, however change the samples for my component:
Power consideration
I'd like to put the raspi zero W in sleep mode when unused to minimize power consumption AND maximize the benefit on start time. There's no real power management on the Raspi HW, so basically you have to cut the power on everything that is unused to save a few watts.Here's a few links I found:
/usr/bin/tvservice -o (-p to re-enable) from hereAutostart
PulseAudio is giving me a hard time: all workds, except that, meaning no sound. Apparently it doesn't like to run as user-mode and it should run as system-wide as it's the exceptionnal case where it make sense (RTFM).#in rc.local, start as SYSTEM (don't forget to launch on background) pulseaudio --system & #start the app su radio -c /usr/local/src/git/alanarduinotools/Python/WebRadioPlayer/start.sh & ... #users that must access the SYSTEM pulse must be in "pulse-access" group (even root) sudo usermod -a -G pulse-access radio sudo usermod -a -G pulse-access pi sudo usermod -a -G pulse-access rootIt does use more CPU, peaks at 100% at opening of a radio and gets within seconds to its cruising speed ok 30-40% (I talk of the TOTAL CPU consumption of the RPi, all included)
Pictures
Links
Radios!
Go to the radio site or TuneIn, F12, Network tab and look for a .mp3 or .m3u file. No magical solution apparently.Inspiration
electrogeek.tokyo ~ Formerly known as Kalshagar.wikispaces.com and electrogeek.cc (AlanFromJapan [2009 - 2025])