Pi MusicBox

** This project is no longer maintained **

There will be no more releases and probably no more support from myself. The Pi 4 and Zero W 2 do not work with the last release and I don't know of any workarounds. Potential alternative software suggestions are available here. The software will continue to be available for now but note it is very outdated, doesn't support the latest Pi hardware and is totally unsupported. I encourage people to find alternatives.
Thanks to everyone that has helped with Pi Musicbox.

Make your Raspberry Pi stream!

Welcome to the Swiss Army Knife of streaming music using the Raspberry Pi. With Pi MusicBox, you can create a cheap (Sonos-like) standalone streaming music player for Spotify, Google Music, SoundCloud, Webradio, Podcasts and other music from the cloud. Or from your own collection from a device in your network. It won't drain the battery of your phone when playing. The music won't stop if you play a game on your phone.

Connect a 25$ Raspberry Pi to your (DIY) audio system, easily configure MusicBox and go! Control the music from your couch using a phone, tablet, laptop or PC, no tinkering required. AirPlay and DLNA streaming also included!


Features

Please note that Pi MusicBox does NOT currently support the Raspberry Pi 4

Screenshots

Requirements

DIY Projects using Pi MusicBox

Pi MusicBox is proud to provide the software for an increasing number of Do It Yourself audioboxes, like these:

Download

Here you can find an SD card image to use on your Pi. It's around 300MB to download and will fit on a 1GB or larger SD card (changes):


This can take a while, so in the meantime, please spread the word!



Howto's

Alongside the install steps below, you'll also find more detailed instructions in the latest manual (Catalan, Spanish, French). Additionally, some helpful Pi Musicbox users have submitted their own instructions and guides.


Instructions

Extract the zip-file. Put the resulting image on your sd-card by using the wonderfully simple Etcher SD card image utility or by following these instructions. The image will fit on a 1GB card, but you should use a larger one if you can as this will leave more space for your music files. The latest manuals are included on the release page.


Configuration

  1. You can edit all settings in the new settings page from the webclient. To access it, you need a network connection. To enable Wifi, you can either first connect the Pi using a cable and use the settings page, or fill in the wifi-settings in the ini file on the SD Card. For that:
  2. Put the SD-card into your computer. Open the contents of the 'config' folder of SD-Card in your Finder/Explorer.
  3. Add your Wifi network and password to the file (and edit other settings if you want) settings.ini It has instructions on what to put where.
  4. MusicBox will autodetect usb audiocards/speakers/boxes and hdmi. It's possible to override this in the settings. For example if you want to use analog out while having hdmi connected.

Detailed instructions can be found in the manuals.


Start me up!

  1. Put the card in the Pi
  2. Connect cables (You don't have to connect a monitor to the Pi if you don't want to)
  3. To use Wifi and USB-Audio you have to plugin the devices before you start the Pi. Restart if you plug them in later.
  4. Power on your Pi
  5. Wait for a while... So in the meantime, follow us!




Accessing the music

  1. Point your browser to the Pi. Depending on your network and computers, it will be available at this address: http://musicbox.local
  2. Most OS X/iOS and Windows devices probably will find it immediately. If it doesn't work, you could try to install Apple Bonjour/iTunes in Windows to make it work. Linux should also work if Avahi or Samba/Winbind is installed.
  3. Using Android, you have to point your browser to the MusicBox using the IP-address of your Pi, e.g. http://192.168.1.5/ (fill in your own!). There is no way to change that for now, unless Android would support it, The IP-address is printed on the screen when MusicBox is started. Connect a monitor/tv to find out. Or use a network/bonjour scanning utility such as Zentri Discovery.

Support & Contact

Please refer to the Frequently Asked Questions and manual before asking questions.


You can discuss features and problems on the forum. Please report bugs about MusicBox itself at the repo at Github. You can also try the #mopidy channel on Freenode, or the Raspberry Pi forums for more general Pi issues.


What's new?

Take a look at the latest changes.

Security

This is system not totally secured. Don't run it outside a firewall!


Thanks

Pi MusicBox is based on the following great projects: