Clueless about music set ups

Roen

Hi lads,

Not much of music fan at all myself but the missus would listen to the odd tune on the laptop when in the kitchen. To that end I am thinking of getting something that I can integrate to Home Assistant.

Doesn't have to be wifi streaming as I have a couple of ethernet cables running to a shelf in the kitchen and can use one for whatever I get.

Neither of us has any sort of collection or library on any device so I suppose the main source would be online radio or online streaming service (amazon/spotify/tunein/other??) plus the very odd local file.

I've looked at the Sonos Play stuff, but incredibly you can't connect via bluetooth, only streams the premium Spotify and the only one with a line in is the Play 5. So that's pretty much out the window but not fully.

So is there something out there that:

1. Connects to your phone or laptop to via bluetooth.
2. Connects to your phone or laptop to via 3.5mm jack.
3. Takes an ethernet connection in the back or is wifi or both.
4. Plays from the above streaming services and online radio sources.
5. Bonus point 1: Has a battery so I can yank the power supply and move it outside.
6. Bonus point 2: Can be extended to connect to another speaker a la Sonos Play and have them play the same (or different) stuff in different rooms.

I'm not at all demanding for someone who doesn't listen to music!

Cheers,
R.

bullpost

This will do most of what you want - great sound but not cheap:
http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/audio-and-headphones/audio/hifi-systems-and-speakers/jvc-ux-d100-wireless-traditional-hi-fi-system-usb-connector-10119017-pdt.html

bk

Google Home sounds like it would be good for you.

All the radio stations in the world with Tunein radio.

You can upload 50,000 songs to a free Google Music account and play them back on it. You can't play individual tracks by name, or artist, buy you can create playlists with them and play the playlists.

Alternatively Google Music Sub or Spofity Premium are excellent IMO, almost all the music in the world at your command!

Google Music doesn't support bluetooth or 3.5mm in, however not a big deal as you can use google cast to stream music from most phone and laptop music apps to the GHome.

You can have multiple GHome's in multiple rooms playing the same thing and you can also do the same with a Chromecast Audio devices connected to other speakers you might already have. Very cool setup.

Amazon Echo and Echo Dot have similar abilities.

jester77

I have a marantz receiver that can do most of that. It has 2 zones built in, I have 5.1 wired in the living and stereo wired in the kitchen. You can play both zones together or different zones. You can connect with bluetooth or wifi, it has spotify built in but I don't use it. I think it is only for premium accounts. It also has internet radio. I have a chromecast connected to the back and cast play music to it. I use airplay for connecting my macbook to it. I think it has wifi, but I only use ethernet.

The only thing it doesn't have is being portable to bring outside. But you could get a decent bluetooth speaker and send music to it from your phone or the receiver.

Roen

Cheers lads,

One thing is clear, more reading required!

robindch

Roen wrote: »

I've looked at the Sonos Play stuff, but incredibly you can't connect via bluetooth, only streams the premium Spotify and the only one with a line in is the Play 5. So that's pretty much out the window but not fully.

Sonos also do the Sonos CONNECT which works with any SMB share, so if, say, you have a bunch of MP3's on your laptop, then just create a regular Windows share to the root MP3 folder on the laptop, then the CONNECT can be configured to look there for files and they'll be available via the Sonos app on your phone to play anywhere you want in the house.

http://www.sonos.com/en-ie/shop/connect.html

I got one of these guys last week and it took about an hour to unpack and configure. The device's MP3 tag parsing code isn't great, at least for my classical collection since it truncates quite a lot of things. Still, the SMB share works fine and I can access everything from there and ignore the MP3 tagging.

As a general comment, trying to get accurate pre-purchase information about IoT stuff in general has been a real pain in the ass and manufacturers seem intent to do little more than fill the air with pseudo-technical, hand-wavey, obscurantist nonsense instead of providing clear, meaningful prose which describes their products accurately.