I have an old model Raspberry Pi, Raspberry Pi Model B rev2, which I got five years ago. And I have a retired speakers. So I think, maybe I can make a bluetooth speaker system with this Pi.
I chaecked my inventory. Found two bluetooth USB dongles. I think it is enough. After googling, I found this one.
Raspberry Pi Bluetooth+Airplay Audio Receiver combo
Go though the steps, I also read the comments of it. I did the following.
Step 1: Preparing the Pi
- Download Raspbian image here. I download Raspbian Jessie Lite, the latest one for now.
- Transfer image to sdcard using Win32 Disk Imager following instructions on www.raspberrypi.org.
- Insert sdcard and power up
- Important! Expand file system to full 8GB capacity
- Reboot
- Login as user pi (password: raspberry). Please note that for the rest of this guide it is assumed that you are logged in as “pi”.
- Update operating system and reboot:
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get -y upgrade sudo reboot
Step 2: Installation
This script is from the comment of
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ cd ~ pi@raspberrypi ~ $ git clone https://bitbucket.org/adenbeckitt/raspberry-pi-audio-receiver-install.git pi@raspberrypi ~ $ cd raspberry-pi-audio-receiver-install/ pi@raspberrypi ~/raspberry-pi-audio-receiver-install $ ./runall.sh Device name: RpiAudio
Step 3: Testing
From my cellphone, I can pair the Bluetooth dongle on my Raspberry Pi. Name of the device is RpiAudio, which I entered on installation.
The pin code is default 0000.
See attached screenshots
I can play music from my cellphone and the output to the speakers attached to the Raspberry Pi. But, there are two big problems.
- The Bluetooth connection is not stable.
- The sound is stuttering.
Now, I check the version of my Bluetooth dongle.
Enter the command in ssh window
hciconfig -a
It is a Bluetooth 2.0
Comparing with the required Bluetooth 4.0.
Bluetooth Version | Max Speed | Range
v2.0 | ~200KB/s | 10m
v3.0 | ~3000KB/s | 1m
v4.0 | ~3000KB/s | 60m
So. I think it is time to get a Bluetooth 4.0 dongle. I know my cellphone, Jianguo U1, supports Bluetooth 4.0.