Smart Loft Controls
# Overview
This page will be updated to detail, take note of, and to cover some interesting projects related to my loft this year.
# Airplay
As one feature of the loft, I wanted to implement a "smart" speaker system so that we could play audio from anywhere without any wires. Using the most of what I already had, I turned to a raspberry pi 3 I had lying around and did some searching. I ended up finding this repo which implements a linux-based airplay receiver. It ended up being quite easy to compile on my pi, and works well from my initial testing. I'm running patchboxos on the pi for a real-time kernel pre-setup with some audio tools.
In terms of hardware, all I did for now was hooking up the pi to two powered Bose Build speakers using a 3.5mm stereo split.
# Spotify Connect
After a few weeks, I also managed to setup the system for Spotify Connect. This allows for streaming audio directly from Spotify's servers to the patchbox as opposed to from Spotify to a phone to the patchbox. raspotify was the best option by far, and the given install instructions worked pretty well.
# Ikea Hacking
a few prototypes compared to the official ikea part on the right
While assembling the lighting system for the loft, we found that we needed a few changes to the IKEA "tertial" lights(https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00424985/)that we had bought in order to mount them. I designed a new mount with a few improvements and printed several at high-infill in PLA.
You can find the model here: https://github.com/Inkering/tertial-mount
# Smart Lights
We've got an interconnected system of smart lights which we can control from a smartphone. My roommate and I also created a sign to show when people can come and hang out using a shadowbox technique.
