$15 Streaming Audio for Cars

I've already written a few Raspberry Pi audio blogs which include:

• Introduction (Hardware, Software, Energy)
• $5 Music Box Server
• Rpi Zero w/ Two Different Inexpensive USB Audio Cards
• Rpi with Supstronics x400 HAT
• Grateful Dead Playing in Parks

This blog is a follow-up to the USB Audio Cards blog. Here I evolve the discussion into using the Raspberry Pi W and one of the inexpensive, but good, USB cards. The W version has onboard wifi. I use it as an access point to interface with my phone over hotspot wifi which also provides the system with internet radio.

I have soldered the USB audio card terminals directly to the Raspberry Pi W board as shown in the below photo. A piece of paper is used between the two boards to help reduce any improper touching of the boards.

USB audio card soldered to Raspberry Pi W.

Raspberry Pi W with power cable and blue audio jack

Using my Android phone, I enable the hotspot before turning on the car. Then I can use a hotspot manager on the phone to find the IP address of the Raspberry Pi W and interact with the music software. I use Moode Audio. The latest version costs $10 but an older version is still free and works just fine. I have many albums ripped to FLAC format on the SD card which are accessible by the software from my phone. The software also allows for internet radio in very high-quality format (for example Groove Salad). This project was specifically designed to fit into a tick tack box as shown in the below photo. $15 covers the cost of the two boards.

Tick tack box used to house the device.

The box fits just below my car stereo's and the short yellow audio jack goes from the project into my car stereo auxiliary input on the front of the car stereo. The USB power is supplied by the car through an adapter. With my phone, I control the music playing through the auxiliary input, streaming internet stations or my own library of high-quality FLAC audio files.

The project installed under car stereo into aux jack.

Hope this is an interesting project for those Raspberry Pi tinkerers. 

Good audio document https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/how-to-play-sound-and-make-noise-with-your-raspberry-pi/