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Author Topic: Id Pi with touch screen as wall-mounted controller for whole house audio?  (Read 3114 times)

Mysticeti

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Monoprice offers a very reasonably priced six source/six zone amp for whole house audio applications.

However, the wall mounted controllers are really bare bones and offer nothing in the way of track information or other metadata.

So what I was wondering... how hard it would be to cook up something like the "Id Pi" with a touch screen (or any screen really, if there's some hard buttons).  Some example screens are here: https://www.adafruit.com/categories/160

Ideally the Raspberry Pi + screen would be wall mountable (via a standard double or single gang electrical box), powered using PoE, and have at least one "hard" button for power toggle.  For ideal usability I'd like to see 5 or 6 hard buttons: power toggle, vol up & down, next "track"/previous "track", and "next source" but that may be a tall order. :)

The audio output of the Pi would be optional.  In my situation I'd rather this Id Pi variant be used as a remote to control JRiver Media center running on a system located next to the Amp powering the zones.

(Apologies if this has already been discussed here.  I tried searching this forum for "id pi" but I got zero hits.)
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bob

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Monoprice offers a very reasonably priced six source/six zone amp for whole house audio applications.

However, the wall mounted controllers are really bare bones and offer nothing in the way of track information or other metadata.

So what I was wondering... how hard it would be to cook up something like the "Id Pi" with a touch screen (or any screen really, if there's some hard buttons).  Some example screens are here: https://www.adafruit.com/categories/160

Ideally the Raspberry Pi + screen would be wall mountable (via a standard double or single gang electrical box), powered using PoE, and have at least one "hard" button for power toggle.  For ideal usability I'd like to see 5 or 6 hard buttons: power toggle, vol up & down, next "track"/previous "track", and "next source" but that may be a tall order. :)

The audio output of the Pi would be optional.  In my situation I'd rather this Id Pi variant be used as a remote to control JRiver Media center running on a system located next to the Amp powering the zones.

(Apologies if this has already been discussed here.  I tried searching this forum for "id pi" but I got zero hits.)
Look in the Linux forum. There are a lot of people playing with Pi.
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Hilton

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Monoprice offers a very reasonably priced six source/six zone amp for whole house audio applications.

However, the wall mounted controllers are really bare bones and offer nothing in the way of track information or other metadata.

So what I was wondering... how hard it would be to cook up something like the "Id Pi" with a touch screen (or any screen really, if there's some hard buttons).  Some example screens are here: https://www.adafruit.com/categories/160

Ideally the Raspberry Pi + screen would be wall mountable (via a standard double or single gang electrical box), powered using PoE, and have at least one "hard" button for power toggle.  For ideal usability I'd like to see 5 or 6 hard buttons: power toggle, vol up & down, next "track"/previous "track", and "next source" but that may be a tall order. :)

The audio output of the Pi would be optional.  In my situation I'd rather this Id Pi variant be used as a remote to control JRiver Media center running on a system located next to the Amp powering the zones.

(Apologies if this has already been discussed here.  I tried searching this forum for "id pi" but I got zero hits.)

Touch screens is one of the next things on my list to play with.  Start a thread in the Linux forum. I already have playback control sorted via Bluetooth and a button for pause/play. Adding extra buttons would be a cinch now.
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Hilton

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Thinking about it, I think it may be possible to do what you want more cost effectively with cheap android tablets and a custom case for the wall.
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Mysticeti

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Thanks for the info.

A cheap (small) tablet might be cost effective.  I'm not sure if I could work any physical buttons into that scenario so relaxing that requirement might be necessary.

The Amazon Fire HD6 is pretty cheap.  Creating a custom case and mounting solution that can hide the PoE wiring starts to get complicated though.  I'm doubtful I could pull that off.

The search for the perfect solution continues! :)
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"And the men who hold high places. Must be the ones who start... to mold a new reality. Closer to the Heart."
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