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

Or is there a better cheap alternative?

[nospam007]

Get refurbished Echo dots for under 35 bucks.

Additionally to playing music in all the rooms, voice-operated, it will open the door, make calls, control the lighting and read books to you or good night stories to the kids and help them with their maths.

Re:Or is there a better cheap alternative?

[jellomizer]

Now to open doors, make calls and adjust lighting. How much extra stuff on top of that $35 do you need?

For the most part Echo alone is as useful as you voice assist on your smartphone. And for smartphones you can get stuff to open doors, control lighting. However I never checks the specs to see if a smartphone can make calls. They never advertise that feature.

Re:Or is there a better cheap alternative?

[Dutch Gun]

It has a 3.5" line-out port or can use Bluetooth. For music playback, you'd obviously need external speakers to get decent audio quality, especially for Echo Dots.

Re:Or is there a better cheap alternative?

[Entrope]

Does Amazon carry adapter cables to convert from those 3.5" jacks to the 1/8â jacks that most of my equipment has?

Re:Or is there a better cheap alternative?

[kaatochacha]

Man, if you've never cobbled together a solution from disparate devices that were in no way the best option for something, you really get out too much.

Squeezebox solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming the ipods are iOS based then you could use an app like iPENG classic to make the ipod into a squeezebox player
Then you just need a computer or raspberry pi equivalent to run the server software on and you should be set to go

Re:Squeezebox solution

[Etcetera]

Assuming the ipods are iOS based then you could use an app like iPENG classic to make the ipod into a squeezebox player
Then you just need a computer or raspberry pi equivalent to run the server software on and you should be set to go

This is probably the best way to go.

A big question is whether you have multiple speakers you want to broadcast to at once. Also, I'm assuming you mean "iPod Touch" here and not the classic iPods. Classics cannot broadcast on their own except to whatever they're physically docked into (although that itself can do what it wants with it). However, neither has the ability to AirPlay to multiple devices simultaneously (which is what you want for a whole-house solution). Personally, I have a Windows box running iTunes constantly that serves as the main media repository. From there, any iOS device on your network can run the "Remote" App, which allows you to select and control music, as well as control multi-speaker output and volume. "Retune" I think is the app I was using on the Android side, although it's been a while.

It can be hard to find AirPlay speakers out there nowadays. I was fortunate enough to pick up 7 or 8 XtremeMac Tango Air speakers a while back for about $60/ea and they're great for this. Find something similar, or an AppleTV to interface with a full HDMI to your stereo system, and you should be all set.

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:Plex/Chromecast Audio

[TheRaven64]

I have musicpd on my NAS and I also export my music directory as read-only NFS share. I can then plug in any cheap machine with acceptable sound (or a RPi for rooms where sound quality isn't that big a deal) also running musicpd. There are multiple apps (desktop, web, and mobile) for controlling musicpd and I can configure each one to output as a stream as well as to the local speakers, so that the others can either listen to their own queue or be slaved to another. Musicpd is packaged for just about any OS that you might be running. Adding an NFS import to most *NIX systems is a simple matter of a line in fstab.

What site do you think this is?

[Anonymous Coward]

I love these sorts of questions. Dear Slashdot, I have 8 Linksys routers from 2006 in my closet, I would like to know how to wire them together to create a smart garage door opener. I know cheap turnkey solutions exist, but that would involve googling them. I'll be patiently awaiting your answer. Love, A Faithful Reader

Re:What site do you think this is?

[Anonymous Coward]

And then someone would point out that you can probably find enough code examples for a raspberry pi. And then offer a link to dd-wrt.com for a starting point for running the code on a 2006 era linksys router.

Re:What site do you think this is?

[thegarbz]

Oooh oooh oooh. First I assume you have a set of WRT54Gs. The timing would suit quite well. You'll need to install DD-WRT on it. You may need a JTAG cable to do this depending on the model. To access the GPIO pins you'll need to solder cables near the RP3 header. They will most likely require some level shifting as it's 3V I/O but if you look up any normal interface to a garage door opener which includes an open collector output then you should be good to go. I'm less certain about the software side. I guess some python could probably do that. You can interface this with the existing web server.

Finally don't forget an app, every cool project has an app.

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:What site do you think this is?

[angel'o'sphere]

Perhaps you should first make a Beowolf cluster with them?
Then you could open/close all doors/windows in your neighbourhood!

Airfoil is close.

[darkith]

Airfoil will stream content from an iOS device to a computer, and then to multiple target devices (many brands), including iOS 7+ devices running their satellite app. Has balancing and zones, etc.

My brother has it setup this way, using a mishmash of old iPods, Airport expresses, AirPlay compatible speakers and and Apple TV.

What site do YOU think this is??

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Sparta^WSlashdot, kid.

Where people understand what ^W means, HTML is considered trivial knowledge,

and we do crazy things with computers and technology because we can.

This was once considered a pillar of geek culture.

Bro, do you even 5-digit UID?

Re:What site do YOU think this is??

[Kazin]

5?

Do you like to tinker?

[Qbertino]

Then go ahead and try to fiddle something with those old iPods.

As far as I can tell, a Rasberry Pi and MPD (music player daemon) does the trick faster, easyer and cheaper.

My 2 cents.

Squeezebox

[fluffernutter]

Logitech Squeezebox is still around. Install squeeze server on any PC in your home, and squeeze player on the iPods, attach to radios whether it be through the aux in or an old one with a dock, done. Remote control with Orange Squeeze on your phone, or though the Squeezebox console.

Re:Privacy is dead for the proletariat

[Mattcelt]

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

Many people willingly whore out their details, but facebook will make money off you whether you want them to or not.

Re:Privacy is dead for the proletariat

[boudie2]

Zuckerberg bought an Island for privacy, with the money he made when you unwittingly gave him your privacy.

There, fixed it for ya!

You spelled unwittingly wrong.