Ask Slashdot: Can You Convert Old iPods Into A Home Music-Streaming Solution?

Slashdot reader zhennian wants to stream music throughout his entire house, "and was hoping that with three old iPods I might be able to put together a centrally managed house-wide audio system." Ideally it would be possible to control what's playing from a central web interface using an app on an IOS or Android device. With the iPods already plugged into docking stations and on the home wifi network, I assume it should be possible.

A search of the Apple app store didn't bring up much and forking out $AUS400 for a Sonos One or equivalent seems wasted when I've already purchased iPod docks. Can anyone recommend an App that will still be compatible with old (ie. 2007) iPods and might do this?
Or is there a better cheap alternative? Leave your best answers in the comments. Can you convert old iPods into a home music-streaming solution?

Comments

I'm sure you can

[thegarbz]

Just like you can convert and old car into a bicycle I'm sure you can turn iPods into a Frankenstein's monster example of what technology was not supposed to do. The result will nearly always be inelegant, frustrating and I'll bet you a Mars bar you'll throw it away soon after you finish and buy an of the shelf solution anyway.

Speaking of buying these DIY solutions often end up costing fat more than you estimate as you find repeated shortcomings in what you create.

Take it from me, don't proceed unless you're a hobby tinkerer or a bored engineer who enjoys the busy work.

Re: What site do you think this is?

[guruevi]

Then you realize an ESP8266 can do all that in a footprint about 1/100th of the router at a price which is about the difference in energy costs to run the router another year.

Re:Privacy is dead for the proletariat

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook has a shadow profile on people who have never agreed to allow them to collect information on them.

Which should be illegal. If you haven't given them consent, they should not have any legal grounds to keep, let alone publicly display, that data. They should have full liability for any identity theft or fraud that may occur with that individual, and they should be able to be sued in court for damages. If they choose to publicly disclose it regardless.

Why? We have non-disclosure and need-to-know laws for a reason. Their "right to profit" (NOT an actual right, mind you.) does not outweigh the individual's need to protect their identity, credit, and safety. Especially when they lack any form of specific agreement with said individual. (Not debating the whole: "You can sign away your legal rights" crap that the so called "land of the free" allows. That's a topic for another day.)

They are publicly admitting that the individual doesn't have an account with them, therefore any data they have should be:

      A. Immediately regarded as unverified and unactionable information. (We wouldn't want to be accused of libel too many times now would we?)

      B. Removed from public view. (Including registered users.)

      C. Discarded immediately. (They did not have permission to retain that data from it's owner. Acting on it would be a violation. Just as it would be a violation for a person in a privileged position, (say a school administrator), to act on information disclosed to them about someone else, (in that case a student), for personal gain.)

Personally, I don't think the laws should need to be re-written every single time a new technology comes along. Preferably we need to enforce the existing laws, but we do need to limit this behavior, and if it requires a law change to get it done, then so be it. People have a need to protect themselves from rumors and misinformation that is spread about them. Facebook and any other such platform should not be exempt from that solely because someone else gave them that data.