Upcycling a Beoplay A8

5 replies
FJ
Offline
Fjvzrk
Bronze
Posted March 14, 2024 at 04:08 GMT
#1643423
Hi all,

I have a Beoplay A8. It is a great sounding speaker but unfortunately only supports Airplay 1.

Over the last month I have been working on a project to upcycle it to make it compatible with Airplay 2.

I have decided to use a Raspberry pi combined with the application Shairport-sync, connecting the Beoplay A8 through the usb port, to take advantage of the built in DAC in the beoplay A8

It works great. I can stream music and have even been able to write a script such that the “previous”, “next” and “play/pause” buttons on the Beoplay A8 are mapped to the corresponding airplay 2 functions. Furthermore I have figured out a way whereby the Beoplay A8 is unbinded from the raspberry pi’s usb port when music isn’t playing. This toggles off the Beoplay A8. When music starts playing usb port is binded again, turning on the Beoplay A8.

Only thing I can get to work is getting access to the Beoplay A8’s hardware volume control. I can control the music volume theough software but not use the built in volume control.

I can find the Beoplay A8’s mixer by using Alsamixer. But changing the volume level has no effect.

I used the application EVTEST to detect the button presses to write the script for “previous”, “next”, “play/pause”. According to this application the Beoplay A8 also has “volumeup” and “volumedown” buttons, but when pushing these buttons on the Beoplay A8 nothing is detected, instead the hardware volume control is triggered up / down.

Any idea’s? Basically I see two ways forward:
(1) Get access to change the volmue of the hardware volume (as I have tried with Alsamixer, but not been able to succeed with)
(2) Set the Beoplay A8’s hardware volume to a fixed level and then expose the physical buttons on the Beoplay A8 such that they trigger the volumeup / volumedown command that I can see exists when using EVTEST. I can then map these commands to the software volume control.

I know that the default volume level of the Beoplay A8 (when turned on) can be set by using a Beo4 remote. Perhaps there is an IR command to ‘lock’ the volume?
Millemis
Offline
Millemis
Bronze
Posted March 14, 2024 at 17:12 GMT
#1663160
My Beoplay A8 - upcycled - setup is somewhat simpler.
I use the PL-out of an Essence MK2 to the R/L line-in on the A8.
The line-in has autosense, which means that the A8 is activated, when starting playback on the Essence - both go into standby after a while of not being used.

The Essence is controlled by a BROne or by the B&O app.
The A8 has a fixed startup level and the volume is controlled via the Essence.
The A8 is basicly ‘just’ a set of speakers.

The big advantage is that the setup this way is part of my B&O Link setup in the house.

MM

Location: Flensborg————Danmark

FJ
Offline
Fjvzrk
Bronze
Posted March 14, 2024 at 17:14 GMT
#1663161
Understood. The disadvantage of that setup is that the buttons on the A8 do not function.
LM
Offline
Laurent Martin-Desile
Bronze
Posted February 23, 2025 at 15:56 GMT
Edited March 4, 2025 at 02:42 GMT
#1668922

@fjvzrk, would you mind sharing your shairport-sync script to use buttons, please.

I have tried this script: 
#!/bin/bash
# Configuration
SHAIRPORT_HOST="localhost"
SHAIRPORT_PORT="5000"
INPUT_DEVICE="/dev/input/event0" # Adjust this to your Beoplay A8's event device

# Function to send commands to shairport-sync
send_shairport_command() {
echo "$1" | nc "$SHAIRPORT_HOST" "$SHAIRPORT_PORT"
}

# Function to handle evtest output
handle_evtest_output() {
local line
while IFS= read -r line; do
if [[ "$line" =~ code\ 165\ \(KEY_PREVIOUSSONG\),\ value\ 1 ]]; then
send_shairport_command "player.previousitem"
elif [[ "$line" =~ code\ 163\ \(KEY_NEXTSONG\),\ value\ 1 ]]; then
send_shairport_command "player.nextitem"
elif [[ "$line" =~ code\ 164\ \(KEY_PLAYPAUSE\),\ value\ 1 ]]; then
send_shairport_command "player.toggle" # or player.pause or player.play, change as needed.
fi
done
}

# Start evtest and handle its output
evtest "$INPUT_DEVICE" | handle_evtest_output
But it returns this error message: 
RTSP/1.0 400 Bad Request
Server: AirTunes/105.1
Severed_hand_of_skywalker
Offline
Severed_hand_of_skywalker
Bronze
Posted February 23, 2025 at 20:47 GMT
#1668923
Can't you also use the later version of AirPort Express?

Location: Toronto, Canada

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