What a Tight Squeeze!
Figure 1. A WiFi SqueezePlay under iPAD openHAB control
I seem to be working backwards. I built up a Raspberry Pi Model B+ with a NOOBs SD Card and installed OpenHAB 1.5.1 with root privileges using sudo.
This seems to work considerably better than my first attempt where I was experiencing very slow performance and frequent lockups.
One of my goals was to get Squeezebox peripherals working and I have done just that. I have successfully got a SqueezePlay and Squeezebox Boom working.
I am able to select and play songs from my media collection, turn the units on and off, mute and demute, control the volume, play and stop.
It wasn't easy because the documentation and information available both from openHAB and Squeezebox support is poor.
Logitech stopped support of its Squeezebox range in 2011-2012. It was never perfect but it was "Nearly Almost".
Getting it to work consisted of:
1. Copying the necessary binding files to %openhab%/addons
This is straightforward.
2. Configuring the global openhab.cfg file to make openHAB aware of the Squeezebox Servers and players.
The Squeezebox servers are referenced by a network or IP address and unusually the players are referenced by their Ethernet MAC address.
3. Creating correlation entries between openHAB items and their corresponding squeezebox functions in an items file.
e.g. Creating a slider item that controls a designated squeezebox's volume.
4. Optionally creating items and corresponding rules in a rules file for additional functionality that is not catered for by the standard set of openHAB squeeze functions and installing any additional action libraries.
5. Creating or updating a sitemap that references the squeezebox items that have just been created.
e.g. Displaying a squeezebox slider item.
The presentation interface of openHAB on Internet Explorer 11 and Firefox on my PCs is dire. Elements do not appear to align correctly giving it a amateurish look. However when operating from my iPad using the openHAB app things look much more professional.
The interface works both ways, in addition to controlling the Squeezeboxes you can display their current status.
What do you think?
