Sonos alternative
We’re busy replacing a customer’s ageing Sonos distributed sound system with a Linux Media Server (c/w SAMBA for remaining Sonos kit) c/w these tiny Linux-powered SBCs (single board commuters) as replacements. Granted, this is merely a prototype. This unit is based upon a Raspberry pi 4B c/w 8GiB RAM, a capacitive touchscreen and an external USB sound card. Though we may use some other SBC if Raspberry does not sort its supply issues pretty quickly.
In any event, it’s dirt cheap and works remarkably well. Moreover, unless one is running upgrades or downloading new material, or listening to internet-based streaming media such as Youtube or internet radio, this system works completely independently of the internet. That’s because most of the material it streams lives on my local Linux Media Server.
The Raspberry pi client (pictured above) runs an ARM64 version of Debian Linux. Being all 100% open source, we don’t have to worry about some foreign company deciding to obsolete key proprietary components or running software “upgrades” without our consent. Moreover everything in our system is replaceable with something else. Doesn’t require Windows networking. This does its business over https. And we can run upgrades on both the server and the clients remotely over SSH – with the customer’s consent, of course. Works an absolute treat! 🙂
As an aside, the Linux media server will talk to any device on the LAN with the necessary permissions. All it requires is a computing device with a reasonably modern browser (e.g Firefox, Chromium etc) and a decent media player (e.g. VLC, SMPlayer etc). Moreover, this system will stream video as well as audio. In addition to feeding our Sonos replacements, it can also be used with say a smartphone or tablet, feeding a decent Bluetooth adaptor connected the Aux input of any Hi-Fi system or any Bluetooth speaker…
