Author: Andriy
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Esparagus working with Snapclient
This is a copy of a post prepared for the Esparagus Audio Brick Crowd Supply campaign. After achieving multi-room sync with Sendspin, squeezelite-esp32, and Airplay-2, it is time to look at snapclient, which was, until recently, the only solution. Snapclient is an open-source remote audio playback protocol with a specific focus on near-perfect sync. Normally, you need to have…
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Esparagus with AirPlay-2
This is a copy of a post prepared for the Esparagus Audio Brick Crowd Supply campaign. In the last update, we used Squeezelite-ESP32 firmware to play audio via the AirPlay protocol. It is a great way to listen to music over wireless, with the possibility to play directly on Apple devices or integrate with Music Assistant. The…
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Using Squeezelite with Esparagus boards
This is a copy of a post prepared for the Esparagus Audio Brick Crowd Supply campaign. Introduction I think it is safe to say Squeezelite-ESP32 is the second most popular option when it comes to connecting ESP32 and audio. But not so long ago, LMS (Logitech Media Server) ruled the hacker’s audio world for years, offering a powerful…
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Esparagus Audio Brick Voice Assist
This is a copy of a post prepared for the Esparagus Audio Brick Crowd Supply campaign. One of the reasons to make an ESP32-S3 version of the board is the more advanced architecture of that chip, which allows for on-chip wake word detection. Similar to the Home Assistant Home device, the Esparagus Audio Brick can…
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Audio Brick Dual DAC prototype work
One of the great features of ESPHome is its modularity. Idea that popped up some time ago – can I make an ESP32 board with two DACs, similar to Louder Raspberry Hat 2X? Hardware is not the issue, but software that would work right out of the box with two I2C-controlled DACs is not something…
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Voice-Assist + Sendspin ESPHome configs
A person from the community reached out recently asking if it is possible to add Sendspin configuration for voice-assist config. Esparagus Echo, or any other ESP32-S3 board that supports voice-assist. After some poking, it turned out that it is possible, and two experimental features work surprisingly well together. Wake-word detection works, TTS works, and audio…
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Louder Raspberry Hats are now available at Elecrow
Both variants for Louder Raspberry Hat Plus – 2.0 and 2.1 are now available at Elecrow, my official production and fulfillment partner This would be especially useful to folks in the US, since delivery from the EU is now really expensive with UPS – not only do they charge $40 for shipping, but also an…
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Amped-ESP32-Plus and Loud-ESP32-Plus are now available at Lectronz
Full-size batch of Amped-ESP32-Plus boards finally came from the factory, and they look really nice and sound great. The main goal for this board to pop-up is to combine the PCM5122 DAC with the TPA3128 amplifier, both being the top-of-the-range models I’m currently using. PCM5122 is a DSP-enabled version of my favourite PCM5100 DAC, so…
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Esparagus ESPHome Integration
This is a copy of a post prepared for the Esparagus Audio Brick Crowd Supply campaign. Introduction The Esparagus Audio Brick was created specifically with the smart home in mind, and although there are a number of alternatives on the market, I think the most popular one is Home Assistant. And the most popular (and easy)…
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Updated Sendspin configs for ESP32 devices
Small update on the ESPHome configs for Sendspin media players. Until now, existing configs worked relatively well on the ESP32-S3-based devices – I guess Sendspin developers used them mainly, so it was working quite well from the start, and recent releases had nothing to wish for – they just work flawlessly. It was a different…
