Running balenaSound on a pico

Hi, so I was looking into using balena sound to power the non-smart speakers around my house, however, I’m sure everyone is aware that PIs aren’t exactly in high availability at the minute (though it sounds like things are getting better), plus getting a pi for every speaker(s) would cost ~$45 each, whereas the ~$5 for a pico is far more affordable.
My question is, surely there are some things you can solder to the pins to get audio out, then, would the pico be powerful enough to run balenaSound. Is it even supported?

Hello @nucker,

balenaSound uses balenaOS. balenaOS, as a Linux operating system, does not run on a Pico. So alas, balenaSound does not run on a Pico.

balenaSound does run on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W ($15). Zero 2 W devices have been extremely hard to find, but https://rpilocator.com/ has shown them starting to appear over the past few weeks in small quantities. I only used balenaSound briefly on a Zero 2 W i.e. I didn’t do any long-term testing, but it sounded as expected on a USB speaker. For balenaSound, I tend to use Pi4 devices, which have started to appear again. We have no control over hardware supply, however Raspberry Pi Ltd said that the supply should be “unconstrained” in Q3. But that may be optimistic. See CEO: Raspberry Pi is “where we said we’d be” for 2023, recovery to follow | Ars Technica.

I think this answers your question. So I am going to close this ticket. But if you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to reply and the ticket will automatically re-open.

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