Hello, I’ve been googleing for quite a while not, so I was thinking maybe someone of the geniuses here has an idea. (I already know everyone here is amazing, I’m running one Pi with my home stereo already)
Basically I would like to get BalenaSound with RaspBerry Pi 2.1 to my car. I love the Airplay convenience of having the possibility for all my friends connecting to it and Bluetooth for a backup solution (Android friends).
The problem is - I don’t have a wifi hotspot in my car and if possible I wouldn’t add it just for this as well.
(I googled 4g raspberry addon cards and 4g wifi routers, but that would be plan C)
Is there maybe any way to create a wifi hotspot with my Raspberry that could be used for Airplay and that wouldn’t disconnect my 4G on my phone for music access…
This is an interesting usecase indeed! I am not sure if anyone else has done this, but that shouldn’t stop us now should it
Just to understand this a bit clearly
You connect your RPi to your cars audio in using aux
You power your RPi using the cars USB or something similar
You want your RPi to connect to your phone for Internet access
You also want your RPi to have a hotspot so folks can connect to the hotspot and use airplay to play music.
Is that right?
Assuming I have understood this correctly, this would require your Raspberry Pi to act as a wifi client and a AP simultaneously. Not unheard of, but a bit tricky - and doesn’t always work flawlessly (see this discussion ).
Are you also open to the idea of having a second USB-WiFi card connected to your RPi? Things would become considerably simple in that case.
Hah, I know you’re awesome, but not this awesome to get a reply in less than 24h
Yes
Yes (I have to test boot times during the weekend, so if possible, I’d like to optimise it somehow)
Having RP use my phone hotspot would be perfect, but not necessary. Because this means I have to turn on hotspot even for every small 5 minute drive. What I rathet thought that the RPi would create it’s own WiFi hotspot where I can connect and stream music to the RPi via AirPlay, because I understand AirPlay needs Bluetooth+Wifi.
The problem with a ‘simple solution’ is that when a phone connects to a WiFi hotstpot without internet access, usually it turns off 4G and tries to use WiFi only. Since WiFi isn’t connected to the internet my phone wouldn’t have internet anymore. - or am I dead wrong in this part?
(But yes, if I’d need a second USB-WiFi card that would be totally fine as well… I just bought RPi 2.1, the UK version, so I think I’d need 1x external USB Wifi and 1x external USB Bluetooth card anyway)
Edit: I just tested the last part and connected my iPhone to my Sony camera WiFi hotspot. The phone was connected to WiFi and the 4G stayed working (because my Sony camera isn’t actually connected to internet haha).
So… I’m guessing the problem got a lot simpler - basically… how can I create a WiFi hotspot from the RPi where my phone can connect to and that can be used with the BalenaSound AirPlay solution?
And how can I speed up the boot time?
Thank you! So basically use it as an Access point without adding actual internet via ethernet to it. And when configuring BalenaSound, I’ll just make it connect its own access point, correct?
Great, I’ll organise an USB Wifi card for myself then.
I see combo Bluetooth+Wifi cards on ebay, would you recommend combo USB card, or separate USB Wifi and separate USB Bluetooth cards? (I already have the bluetooth one)
