Raspberry Pi 2 on the go media player running OSMC

Help and Support Raspberry Pi
1

I wish to use a Raspberry Pi 2 running OSMC as a music player for my car. My reason for pursuing this is my phone is incapable of holding my entire music library and I want to have it on the go. On to my questions (warning, I am very new to Pi).

  1. Is it possible to setup a wifi access point on the Pi while running OSMC? I have found countless guides on how to connect to a wifi connection, but not how to create one while using the OSMC OS. I don’t care about talking to the internet at all, I just want to be able to control the Pi with the phone, and have the Pi play the music.

  2. I have a 128gb Sandisc Ultra Micro SD Card. I need this sd card to house the OS as well as all of the media. How can I get the media into a location that OSMC can read?

Thanks

2

You do understand that if you connect the phone to a hotspot run by the pi, that the phone will now no longer have a data connection until it’s disconnected from the hotspot? This is the first reason why you would rather run the hotspot from the phone and have the pi connect to it.
This thread below address all of this and more…

Also, I think there have been reports of Rpi not dealing with sdxc (very high capacity) sdcards… If it seems to be a problem when you try to install, you could try installing to a smaller card and using the sdxc in a usb adapter maybe?

3

Before you go down the path much farther, have you considered using Subsonic (www.subsonic.org) music server? If you have a computer that you can leave on at home with enough storage space and a mobile device with a data connection, then you are set. No need for a rpi in the the car! Good luck.

4

Streaming music off of a data connection burns through monthly data limits way too fast. If I had infinite data then this would be my go to, but alas I do not.

5

I did not know that. I would have thought it be the other way around if anything. Ok, well I guess the phone will have to be the hotspot then.

As for the SD card, I was reading that you just have to format the card correctly. It was on sale on amazon and I figured eh, if it doesn’t work I will give it to my girlfriend to use in her S4, so either way no loss.

6

Surely your mobile device has WiFi right? Then download a bunch of your music using WiFi to save data allotment. If you give subsonic a chance, you might be surprised by how it works. Much simplier, but maybe you want the RPi challenge.

7

The whole point of the project is to have my entire music collection on demand on the go without using my data. I am sure subsonic does what it does well, it just doesn’t meet my requirements.

8

Good luck with your project and I hope you get to listen to your music soon. :slight_smile:

9

really i got a squeezebox server and a 6gb data plan and i rarely burn thru it all in a month and i stream alot

10

As far as getting your music onto the Pi, why not install on the regular 8gb MicroSD and put your music on a USB thumbdrive. That way it’s easily removed when you want to add more media to it?

Wish I could help with the first part of your question. @ActionA’s comment throws quite a wrench in the works there.

11

Yeah, I only have a 3gb plan and I use my phone a lot. On the plus side I have reached a point where I can play music off my portable hard drive. Still not quite where I wanted to be but getting closer.

OSMC is definitely awesome though. Really loving the interface and how easy the initial setup was.

IMG_20150911_212248.jpg3200×2368 1.89 MB

1 Like
12

Nice setup. But be careful with powering an external hard drive off of the Pi. Put a USB hub between if possible.

13

I have done exactly what you are trying to do. I have an iPhone 6 with iOS 9 and I assure you that i am able to connect to my wifi hotspot and have internet access available on my iPhone at the same time. Here is my setup.

Raspberry Pi 2
Mausberry Circuit Car Switch - http://mausberry-circuits.myshopify.com/collections/car-power-supply-switches/products/2a-car-supply-switch
Hifiberry Digi+ (not needed, I used it to get a cleaner signal to my sound processor.)
32GB SD card
128GB USB flash drive
WiFi adapter - High Speed USB 2.0 WiFi Wireless Adapter 802.11n 150Mbps for Raspberry Pi B B+ 2 for sale | eBay

The Mausberry Circuit Switch allows you to safely shutdown your raspberry pi once car is turned off.

I use the Hifiberry Digi+ to send an optical signal to my sound processor.

So here is how i got everything working.

Once i had the OSMC up and running I SSH into the pi and setup the hotspot following this guide - RPI-Wireless-Hotspot - eLinux.org

Then start your pi and you should now see you access point available. Now I used Sybu app to connect to the OSMC in my car, I tried other apps to control it with some issues. Sybu was the best all around solution that worked the best for my situation.

I just loaded a bunch of my music onto my flash drive and plugged it into the raspberry pi and OSMC found them.

14

Thank you for the guide damato300. This looks like the route I was going to take.

I must admit though I decided to take a different route for this problem. I stupidly dropped and broke the screen of my old phone last week, so I bought a Moto G as a replacement which is capable of taking my 128 GB micro SD card. That is enough space to hold all my music and it can use my car’s Bluetooth connection to interface with my car.

Now that I kinda killed that project by solving it a different way I am deliberating on what to do with my Pi. Considering either portable music box, media center, or security camera.