Using the Multiroom System
Using the Multiroom System
Tutorial: Multiroom Audio System Based On Raspberry Pi And Hifiberry
The system is now up and running. There are different ways to control and use it. The “simple” way, which my wife prefers: Airplay. For example, using the iPad, I get a list of all my Squeezeboxes when clicking on Airplay.
If it’s music from your iTunes library, Spotify, Youtube—all can be sent to the room you want, just by selecting it. If you’re using Android, no worries, there are many apps that allow you to send music from Android to Airplay, like AllCast or Allstream. Most of them cost about €5, which I find reasonable. Since I haven’t used any of them, feel free to give me feedback on these.
You can control the playback as well from the Squeezebox web interface, which can be found under the IP of the Raspberry Pi server, followed by the port “:9000”. There you can select the music you want, from local files to web radio and Spotify, and the room in which you want to play it.
If you like, you could even synchronize different players to play the same music in different rooms:
This works well, but the web interface looks a bit outdated and rather boring.
There’s also a Squeezebox app for phones and tablets (Logitech Squeezebox Controller for iOS and Android), but I don’t like this one very much. For the iPad/iPhone, there’s the iPeng 8 app, which looks much nicer. This one isn’t free (8.99 €), but I highly recommend it. It gives you easy access to the playlists in the different rooms.
It is very easy to synchronize them.
The music selection from different sources, with Spotify integrated.
It’s possible to create automatic random playlists according to your taste.
During playback, the cover and the main control buttons are displayed. It’s possible to display the lyrics via a Squeezebox plugin as well.
It’s even possible to set an alarm clock that gradually increases the music’s volume. The last played track will be played automatically to wake you up.
In addition, there’s a “Party Mode”: Your guests install “iPeng Party” on their smartphone and can select the music they want to listen to next, without being able to alter the current playlist or the volume (this is up to the master). Nice!
Similar apps, with slightly different functions and look, exist as well for Android, e.g., Orange Squeeze, Squeeze CTR and the free Squeezer; try them out to see which one you prefer.