“I cannot fault the hardware here - it is excellent. I have mine hooked up to a small set of speakers recycled from a broken tv, with 3d printed enclosures and the sound quality is amazing for such a small thing. However - the software is another matter. If you're happy using this with your premium only Spotify account then you're good. For the rest of us, you are on your own and that's that. It is completely possible to get everything working as it should provided you're a whizz at Python programming but unfortunately I'm not and I haven't been able to find a way to get the screen working - I use Pi Musicbox because it's super lightweight. Mopidy with Iris (the only fully supported software on offer here) isn't as lightweight and things are sluggish on the RPi Zero when compared to MusicBox even though the latter is based and built on Mopidy itself. Getting the buttons working in any software is relatively easy but the screen is another matter entirely. I have tried various other OS's including Volumio (way too heavy for a RPi Zero), Rune, Moode etc, but installing the screen related scripts always fails on these other platforms too, often breaking the system. This is the second audio related piece of hardware I have ordered here, and it seems Spotify is sponsoring the software writing elves because that too was relied on a premium Spotify subscription to work (although at least with that I was able to get it fully working without, at least)
So in summery - an excellent piece of hardware, the sound quality is very good, build quality excellent and all at a fair price. Software support is more complicated, perfectly fine if you're a fully paid up member of Spotify, but if you just want to listen to internet radio streams with the minimum of effort you'll have to do without the screen unless you are good with Python. I feel this wouldn't be such a drama, if only it was made clear on the product page, which it is not.”
“Fantastic kit as usual from the pirates, once I got it going, ( due to my limited knowledge of python), great sound using the mini speakers, would definitely buy again.
One thing I would say it may be better mentioning on the instructions how to access Iris, as I can see some beginners may have problem with it.”
