Leads. They’re SO last decade. Surely any tech head worth the name will be proudly wire-free by now, right? Actually, wrong. We couldn’t believe how many folk are still shackled by black spaghetti. So we thought we’d give the world a nudge in the right direction by showing you how to create your very own JustBoom airplay receiver using Raspberry Pi and a JustBoom HAT/pHA
All set? Here we go…
Here’s what we needed to make this piece of streaming magic:
- Raspberry Pi
- JustBoom HAT or pHAT
- MicroSD card with latest Raspbian Jessie (Lite)
Setup Raspbian
Our first step was to set up our JustBoom with a Raspbian. It’s pretty standard stuff, so we won’t go into detail. But if you’d like a helping hand, simply follow sections 1 and 2 of this ‘Set Up Your JustBoom With Raspbian’ guide.
Setup Shairport Sync
Next, we had to get our Shairport Sync sorted. This phenomenal Sync device is an AirPlay audio player with the power to stream audio from iTunes, iOS devices and other AirPlay sources. With this beast in your home you can sync audio across many different rooms, so you can wander around your gaff whilst never missing a beat.
The Shairport Sync project can be found on GitHub, so check it out. This is what we used to turn our Raspberry Pi into a JustBoom AirPlay receiver.
First, we updated the repositories and installed the dependencies we needed:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -y
sudo apt-get install -y build-essential git xmltoman autoconf automake libtool libdaemon-dev libasound2-dev libpopt-dev libconfig-dev avahi-daemon libavahi-client-dev libssl-dev libsoxr-dev
Then we cloned the Shairport Sync repository:
| git clone https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync.git && cd shairport-sync |
Next we configured and built Shairport Sync:
| autoreconf -i -f |
| ./configure –with-alsa –with-avahi –with-ssl=openssl –with-metadata –with-soxr –with-systemd |
| getent group shairport-sync &>/dev/null || sudo groupadd -r shairport-sync >/dev/null
getent passwd shairport-sync &> /dev/null || sudo useradd -r -M -g shairport-sync -s /usr/bin/nologin -G audio shairport-sync >/dev/null |
| getent group shairport-sync &>/dev/null || sudo groupadd -r shairport-sync >/dev/null
getent passwd shairport-sync &> /dev/null || sudo useradd -r -M -g shairport-sync -s /usr/bin/nologin -G audio shairport-sync >/dev/null |
| sudo make install |
Finally, we enabled Shairport-Sync to start at boot…
| sudo systemctl enable shairport-sync |
…before rebooting the Pi to finalise the installation:
| sudo reboot |
Test It
Now for the moment of truth.
The dreaded test.
With baited breath we flicked on our AirPlay source and searched for our freshly installed AirPlay receiver. Boom! It appeared as its hostname. Music to our ears.
By now we had the streaming bit between our teeth. So we repeated the installation for several more JustBoom devices to create our very own multi-room audio setup selecting multiple AirPlay receivers.
We simply loved this project as it made enjoying our fave music so much more convenient – and literally transformed our listening habits. In fact, we reckon it’s one of our greatest hits.
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