Build online radio player using Raspberry Pi

Published: 24 December 2016 | Last updated: 19 March 2017 | Software

Simple guide to building an online radio player using Raspberry Pi with Android/iOS device as remote control.

Motivation

My brother shifted home but left behind a set of stereo speakers with subwoofer. To not leave in the dust, I took it and hooked it to my Raspberry Pi 2. My Pi is already connected to my TV but instead of keeping the screen on when all I need is just to listen, having a set of speakers is better; i.e. lower power consumption, not introducing extra lighting to the room, etc.

Edifier speakers

Setup

Pre-requisites

You need:

Raspberry Pi
Kodi with TuneIn Radio
Speakers with analogue input

Install Kodi on Raspberry Pi

You may refer to a guide I have written, Installing Kodi.

Dual audio output

If you have both HDMI and analogue audio ports connected like my setup, you need to tweak Kodi to output to both at the same time. Otherwise, it will play to HDMI exclusively.

The steps are:

From Kodi main screen, navigate to System > Settings > System > Audio output.
Set Audio output device to HDMI and Analogue.

On the same screen, I changed Number of channels to 2.1 since I have a pair of speakers and a subwoofer. Change this to whichever that fits yours.

Install TuneIn Radio

Firstly, you need to add a repository that has TuneIn addon into Kodi. An example of such is SuperRepo. Please follow their guide.

Then, install TuneIn radio addon:

From Kodi main screen, navigate to Music > Add-ons > Get more....
Scroll down until you find TuneIn Radio and install it.

Now test playing an online radio channel. Not every channel work since some stations may have imposed geo-blocking.

Using mobile as Kodi remote control

From Kodi main screen, navigate to System > Settings > Services > Web server. Enable Allow control of Kodi via HTTP. Verify that your Raspberry Pi Kodi can be accessed from another machine on local area network by browsing http://<Pi hostname>:8080/ which should look like below:

Then you should be able to remote control Kodi using their official mobile app:

Have fun listening!