Looking for collaborators for a small project developing a small plug and play display for showing album art

[Frugivore8894]

I had the idea to make a small 1-2" display for showing album art while listening to music on a PC. I don't have the electrical skills but I do have the cad and prototyping skills and connections to make a very nice enclosure. I'm looking for a few people who are interested in the idea what have the skills to help with the project. At the moment I have no plans on taking to market instead I want to make it open source so thats why I'm looking for a collaborator rather then a commission. Even if you'er not interested if anyone knows of other forums or discord servers that would be a good place to ask that would also be great. 

[Takumidesh]

something like this?

Spotify Car thing

this seems pretty simple, rpi with a tft screen and you are done.

[Likwid]

I think this is what you are searching for.

https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/raspberry-pi-photo-frame

[Frugivore8894]

2 minutes ago, Takumidesh said:

something like this?

Spotify Car thing

this seems pretty simple, rpi with a tft screen and you are done.

Yep thats the inspiration but I use iTunes. I know it's pretty simple it's just not my area of expertise. 

[Frugivore8894]

1 minute ago, Likwid said:

I think this is what you are searching for.

https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/raspberry-pi-photo-frame

It's similar but It needs to be an external display of the main PC. And also this uses a very large display where as I want to use something more like this https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/focus-lcds/E144RB-FW400-R/12182176

[Takumidesh]

23 minutes ago, Frugivore8894 said:

electrical skills

I don't think you really need much electrical skills for something like this except for basic soldering.

a screen on a low power pc is all you would really need hardware wise.

if you wanted to make it even simpler, just a usb display as a second monitor (which is what most people do already) then you just drag the window into that screen (or run a bash script to open the window automatically)

 

the hardest challenge would be software, for each music streaming service + client that you want to support (itunes, spotify, ytmusic, tidal, pandora, etc + others like plex + plexamp) you need to either have an api, or reverse an api if possible. assuming you go with an entirely independent unit.

 

If I was going to do this, I would just buy something like this 5" tft. Then it's not limited to music and instead you can put whatever you want on that display.

 

here is a 4" one with hdmi link

[Likwid]

6 minutes ago, Frugivore8894 said:

It's similar but It needs to be an external display of the main PC. And also this uses a very large display where as I want to use something more like this https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/focus-lcds/E144RB-FW400-R/12182176

What OS will you be running, if it's windows I can help with software. Python with OpenCV should be enough, if it's possible to know what itunes is playing

 

[Frugivore8894]

2 minutes ago, Takumidesh said:

If I was going to do this, I would just buy something like this 5" tft. Then it's not limited to music and instead you can put whatever you want on that display.

 

I 100% agree it would be incredibly easy to do with a display like that but thats not really what my goal is. I want a very small unobtrusive unit that is 1:1 or some slightly taller aspect ratio that can fit the iTune album art pop out window very nicely. Thats why I said a 1-2" display. This also doesn't require a ton of electrical skills, I can solder that not the problem, it's the circuitry I am lost at. 

[Frugivore8894]

9 minutes ago, Likwid said:

What OS will you be running, if it's windows I can help with software. Python with OpenCV should be enough, if it's possible to know what itunes is playing

 

I run windows 11. There is an open source iTunes rich presence for discord that could be easily adapted if it were to end up being a whole integrated system rather than just a display that uses the built in pop out. The advantage to that is that one could have iTunes open while showing the art (it's one or the other built in). https://github.com/kkevinm/iTunes-Discord-RP

[Takumidesh]

6 minutes ago, Frugivore8894 said:

I 100% agree it would be incredibly easy to do with a display like that but thats not really what my goal is. I want a very small unobtrusive unit that is 1:1 or some slightly taller aspect ratio that can fit the iTune album art pop out window very nicely. Thats why I said a 1-2" display. This also doesn't require a ton of electrical skills, I can solder that not the problem, it's the circuitry I am lost at. 

for that, the way I see it is you have a few problems to solve

 

what are the parts you can do?

 

Identify the music

fetch the album art

display the album art

 

to dive deeper:

 

obtain a screen

connect screen to pc or power

3d print, mill, injection mold, or otherwise manufacturer a housing.

write software, which breaks down into

  - is the display just supposed to be a regular display

  - is it supposed to be a special device that 'just works' (i.e. you plug it in with usb and boom album art shows up no matter what)

  - what services and clients are you expecting it to work with (or should it be able to identify what's playing on the fly, based on analysis of      audio playing either through speakers (microphone) or the audio stream on the pc)

  - is the unit intended to be standalone (like a raspberry pi, or an esp device) or just a display?

 

fleshing out the idea some more I think can help with communicating the idea, as well as understanding the limitations.

 

it seems to be mostly a software problem, and the hardware is just a matter of picking a screen you like IMO.

 

 

All that said, I would probably start by creating a repo, and quantifying the requirements, and the exit strategy (what constitutes a version 1)

[Frugivore8894]

6 minutes ago, Takumidesh said:

it seems to be mostly a software problem, and the hardware is just a matter of picking a screen you like IMO.

Yep... I can do everything in relation to the housing. I'm a CAD person and I got some really great prototyping contacts. I'm fully aware that this is a lot to do (depending on the implementation) and thats why I said "collaborators". I just had an idea plus a quarter or less of the skills to make it happen.

[Takumidesh]

3 minutes ago, Frugivore8894 said:

Yep... I can do everything in relation to the housing. I'm a CAD person and I got some really great prototyping contacts. I'm fully aware that this is a lot to do (depending on the implementation) and thats why I said "collaborators". I just had and idea plus a quarter or less of the skills to make it happen.

I added more to my post, not sure if you saw the edit.

 

effectively what I am asking, is what is this thing supposed to be? a thing that does a thing is pretty vague. and the the cad aspect seems to be pretty light, since it really boils down to a small housing that is either printed or milled.

 

edit again: thats why i brought up these points:

9 minutes ago, Takumidesh said:

- is the display just supposed to be a regular display

  - is it supposed to be a special device that 'just works' (i.e. you plug it in with usb and boom album art shows up no matter what)

  - what services and clients are you expecting it to work with (or should it be able to identify what's playing on the fly, based on analysis of      audio playing either through speakers (microphone) or the audio stream on the pc)

  - is the unit intended to be standalone (like a raspberry pi, or an esp device) or just a display?

that type of information can make it easier to work on things.

also why I mentioned a repo on GH or similar, that way the project can be quantified a little better.

[Frugivore8894]

2 minutes ago, Takumidesh said:

I added more to my post, not sure if you saw the edit.

Yep thats about what I was going to do. I'll make a cad mock up of what I'm thinking of when I get some time tonight. And I'll write up a bit of a spiel of what my idea is.

[Frugivore8894]

@Takumidesh

What would you suggest I do to get it the word out?

https://github.com/Frugivore8894/PC-album-art-display

[Takumidesh]

21 hours ago, Frugivore8894 said:

@Takumidesh

What would you suggest I do to get it the word out?

https://github.com/Frugivore8894/PC-album-art-display

now that there is a repo, you can link it to friends and such.

 

You can also put the f3d/step/solid whatever files on the repo too!

 

there are lots of discord channels that have more technical aspects, but having something that people can attach too is much better for sure.

 

Zack freedman has a good discord for electronics people and such.

 

Additionally on github, you can create issues and for simple stuff tag them as 'good first issue' there are other tags as well, that make them show up on searches/browsing. so people looking for stuff to work on can find it.

 

The model is great, it helps understand what the intention is a little better too.

 

the next problem to solve I think is getting more fleshed out requirements.

 

the readme has a good introduction to the project, but it has no roadmap or goals.

 

Goal 1: IMO is determining how to get the current playing song/album, or whatever extra info is needed, and where to get the actual album art from (local file or a website like discogs.)

 

There are a few components to consider too.

 

1: screen (obviously the model can be changed to fit a given screen)

2: PCB design, the unit needs power supply of some type at the bare min (usb or dedicated power, either way it will most likely need a board) it may also need other things like wifi, bluetooth, or microcontroller.

3: software, but this is going to be determined by a few other things

    3a: MCU or soc like rpi

    3b: communication: how do we establish a connection to either PC, music streaming service, album art repo, etc (this can be usb, with software running on the pc, or self contained)

    3c: how do we determine what art to show. are there APIs available that can tell us what song is playing, or would there need to be some external tool to determine this

4: BOM/ parts acquisition. ideally for an open source project like this, common parts are best. one off and low run stuff means the project is dead if no one can find the part.

 

 

 

I would say the first thing to research is to determine how to get the currently playing track + album for any given client.

I can make some issue on the repo to track that progress.

[Takumidesh]

@Frugivore8894Hey there. I put some stuff on the repo, check it out!

[Frugivore8894]

39 minutes ago, Takumidesh said:

@Frugivore8894Hey there. I put some stuff on the repo, check it out!

Yep I’ll address some of that right now.

[Frugivore8894]

@TakumideshI also made a Hackaday project page so hopefully that will attract. few people we'll see.

 

https://hackaday.io/project/189489-small-album-art-display-for-your-desk