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 (opens new window) 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 (opens new window) 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 (opens new window) 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/ (opens new window))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 (opens new window)
# 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.
