So im building a home multi media center using a Raspberry Pi 3 B for my mum loaded with OSMC. https://forums.bit-tech.net/index.p...ayer-advice-multi-format.330424/#post-4377637 The next stage is the audio. My mum ideally wants speakers in the living room and bedroom that can play the same audio that is stored locally. Problem is she does not have the internet or a smart phone and all the multiroom speakers i can see all need the internet and/or smart phone app. Is there no speakers than can run off a hub, that is connected (wired or wireless) to the Pi 3?
How's she going to be interfacing with the Pi? There's lots of ways of doing this, but the most full-proof that I can see (@Gareth Halfacree where are you?!?) is to wire up the Pi's output to a two position switch, livingroom/bedroom (or three position with an option for both [and a small amp to double the signal?])wire the switches outputs to the respective rooms, have either powered speakers or a small amplifier wired to passive speakers. Lots of modern active speakers will go to a low power mode until they receive a signal, so they would probably be your best bet. A step up would be to do all this wireless either via bluetooth or 802.11. Bluetooth transmitters and receivers are easily available and work as (semi) stand alone devices but going multi-room may be an issue depending on the wall construction and the class of device, you're almost defiantly looking at class 1 devices, if it doesn't explicitly say it's class 1, it probably won't be and isn't worth a second look. You'll either need to keep that switch, and have two sets of transmitter/receiver or you could look into setting up the Pi its self as a bluetooth access point again, the output of the bluetooth receivers goes to the active speakers capable of self power-on. 802.11, I'd loose the switch, (but buy a wireless access point... so a fancier switch) and get a pair of wi-fi receivers capable of doing what you need (app/device free streaming) set it all up, and then probably go for a manual switch in each room to; power on/off the receivers though there'll be a (an unknown) delay while they go through their startup, power on/off the active speakers leaving the receiver always on this gives (semi) instant output, or switch both for lowest power consumption...
/me waves Easiest way of achieving what's being discussed would be to use a Pi 3's onboard Bluetooth to connect to two pairs of Bluetooth speakers, switching betwix each as and when you like. Disclaimer: I've never actually tried to connect a Pi 3 to a Bluetooth speaker since you stopped needed to use the console to do so, and I have no idea how tricky it makes switching between two different Bluetooth connections. Also, as @asura says, signal strength will likely be an issue between rooms - you may need to ditch the onboard Bluetooth in favour of a stronger USB version with decent antenna. Another way of doing it would be to have three Pis, and have the master Pi stream its audio to one or more of the other Pis on-demand via Wi-Fi. I did something similar a while back, streaming audio from my desktop to a Pi (or vice-versa, I forget - it was a few years ago now) and it worked pretty well bar adding a small delay. While I'm here, though, my pet peeve (down boy!) would like to say... "Fool-proof," as in "this is so simple it's proofed against fools screwing it up." I see "full-proof" a lot on t'internetses, normally from USians, and it makes me twitch every time.
When choosing the Bluetooth speakers you can only use one audio Bluetooth speaker connection at a time, and then it'll run all audio through that. I problem iv seen people have by hacking multiple bluetooth speakers is that they all become desynced, some seconds behind the other speaker creating a echo effect in the house.. The range will be short, one pair will be right next to the TV/Pi, and the other pair will be directly above in her bedroom. Iv been looking at this, https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=82964 Just trying to wrap my head around it. could that work along side Kodi/OSMC? and offline? not sure it could, also its pay to use
Easiest solution: multiple Pis, each connected to its own set of speakers (Bluetooth or otherwise). Each Pi runs Volumio connecting to a central shared drive (cheap NAS?) for music, with the Volumio Snapcast plugin being used to sync music between rooms.
