Update 45: Beatnik is one year old.
Sunday.
(Pics: 1 knob, 2 render on website, 3-6 new office, 7 pre wired button)
Nice that my initial post is exactly 365d old on a sunday:
https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1ktqpf8/built\_a\_selfhosted\_sonos\_alternative\_based\_on/
I’ll spare you from a sexy rewind video. But you can scroll from the bottom of r/beatnikAudio to the top. I think it’s nice.
The last 2 weeks:
a) did move & started furnishing the new office. Sorting parts. Reorganising & labeling. Logo on window.
b) prototyped the knob case and esp32 controller. I did miss prototyping. (see video from friday last week here: https://www.reddit.com/r/beatnikAudio/comments/1tdyv2v/video\_beatnik\_knob\_prototype\_cased
)
c) preparing closed testing. Finally all parts here. Also the pre-wired button arrived. As i still have trouble pre-testing the parts individually, i think I’m going to send you assembled devices. (also a good way to say sorry for letting you wait for so long). I hope i’ll manage to get this ready very soon.
d) Big project: One major step is done. The first Beatnik Radio station was released and embedded in a website: https://hof-bar.ch (on top of the page you can play the radio). It plays what they’re playing on on the turntables in the Bar. Unfortunately it’s closed on Sunday, so you’ll just here static noise today. But it runs from Monday to Saturday (07.00-24.00 or so). It constantly runs for 6-7weeks now.
e) troubleshooting. While the radio station runs without hickups since april 10th, some issues appeared on some playback devices after 3 weeks. (3 weeks super stable) Never was an issue with hard- or software. It was always network configuration. So they started optimizing the network and adding more infrastructure, introducing restrictions. Works again now. As a result there’s a network configuration guide in the repo now.
https://github.com/byrdsandbytes/beatnik-pi/blob/master/network-reqiurements.md
Unitl now: It’s never software/snapcast that is the issue. If you have hick-ups / stuttering or out of sync issues. it’s most likely one of the following 2 reasons:
- network
- heat (pi5)
F) Did render and embed it in website. (Pic 1)
G) Territorial dispute with a pigeon (balcony).
Currently I do not manage to update every sunday. But the plan is to do it weekly again starting july. Have a nice Sunday. 🎈
Original Post Date: Sunday, May 24, 2026
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