Kitchen Pi radio with kodi

Posted on Author Kodi Community Forum - All Forums

Introduction
Currently I have three Raspberry pi’s running Kodi:

  • Living room (OSMC) (also running Hyperion and Spotify installed according ‘Howto-setup-a-spotify-connect-web-server-on-a-raspberry-pi-with-osmc‘. Spotify playback is not visible in Kodi itself, so might be difficult to detect whether or not it is active.)
  • Bedroom (OpenELEC) (Spotify might be installed in the future)
  • Attic (OpenELEC) (Spotify might be installed in the future)

All three are connected to a shared MySQL database which is running on my NAS, a Banana Pi. The Pi in the living room is mostly operated with CEC, the others are operated via Yatse.

Problem
What I would like to add to this setup is a Raspberry pi+speakers in the kitchen which acts as a radio. To meet WAF a certain radio station must be playing at the push of a button (so no phone required). My plan is to have the pi continuously playing this ‘certain radio station’ via a .m3u file. By connecting the speakers to a wall socket which is controlled by a wall switch.
In addition I would like to play music from my NAS (via Yatse) and there is a wish to include Spotify as well.

Possible solutions

  1. Play radio station via Kodi-MPD, and use MPD pause/resume on XBMC playback starts/stop when playing music via Yatse. Will this also work for Spotify?
  2. Install Snapcast on living room Pi to cast music/Spotify to kitchen Pi. Kitchen Pi needs to be paused/continue playing the ‘certain radio station’ when Snapcast is not active. This has a nice addition of a multi-room audio solution
  3. Add-ons I searched which might help in pausing/playing the ‘certain radio station’:
    C1. Sleep timer: start radio station after xx minutes of inactivity
    C2. XBMC PartyMode Autostart
    C3. Callbacks ver2 to run a script (or multiple scripts) which handle the different desired steps (also see below)
    C4. Autoexec.py to do some scripting magic
  4. Buy a Bluetooth programmable button which starts the ‘certain radio station’ regardless of what the Pi is doing (sounds complicated)
  5. Alternative solution?

Question
What would be the best way to accomplish the ‘Kitchen pi radio’?

Additional
Possible/required steps in a script (my experience with Python or other scripts is ‘0’ so some help would be desired Smile)

  1. After startup: play predefined radio station (e.g. a .m3u file) Use ‘onStartup’ command?
  2. No radio in the following stages:
    2a. Manually play music by using Yatse app for Android: select and play music from shared MySQL library. Possible via ‘Use visualisation if playing audio’ under settings – appearance – screensaver settings?
    2b. When streaming Spotify via Spotify connect (Spotify )
  3. Automatically start ‘certain radio station’, after:
    3a. Manually pausing music via Yatse app, wait X minutes. Use ‘onPlayBackPaused’+<wait_command>’?
    3b. Manually stopping music via Yatse. Use ‘onPlayBackStopped’ command?
    3c. Automatically stop music after Y hours ‘onPlayBackStart’+<idle_timeout_command.’?
    3d. Manually pausing music via Spotify app, wait X minutes.
    3e. Manually stopping music via or Spotify app.
    3f. Automatically stop Spotify connect music after Y hours.

Note 1: in case relevant information is missing please let me know
Note 2: in case this thread is posted in the wrong section please let me know as well (or move it to the correct section Angel).