Spotify Connect for Ubuntu, Debian and Raspbian (SpoCon)

Introduction

SpoCon is a Spotify Connect for Debian package and associated repository which thinly wraps the awesome librespot-java library by Gianluca Altomani and others. It works out of the box on all three revisions of the Pi, immediately after installation.

Download Latest Version

SpoCon releases for Ubuntu and Debian on Launchpad

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:spocon/spocon
sudo apt-get -y update
sudo apt-get install spocon

Raspbian releases

Luckily Launchpad is also supporting armhf versions , these are especially build for distributions like Raspberian

Easy Installation

This command downloads and installs the Debian package and adds its apt repository, which ensures you’ll always be up to date with upstream changes.

curl -sL https://spocon.github.io/spocon/install.sh | sh

That’s it! Plug a speaker into your Pi on your local network, select the device in Spotify et voilà!

Hard installation

Essentially, here’s what the easy installer does,

# Add repo and its GPG key
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 7DBE8BF06EA39B78
## This downloads the armhf version for Raspbian Pi
echo 'deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/spocon/spocon/ubuntu bionic main' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/spocon.list

# Install package
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y install spocon

Requirements

You’ll need a Spotify Premium account in order to use Connect.

Uninstalling

To uninstall, remove the package,

sudo apt-get remove -y spocon

To completely remove spocon and its Debian repository from your system try,

sudo apt-get remove -y --purge spocon

Configuration

SpoCon should work out of the box and should be discoverable by Spotify Connect on your local network, however you can configure it by editing /opt/spocon/config.toml which passes arguments to librespot-java.

deviceName = "librespot-java" ### Device name ###
deviceType = "COMPUTER" ### Device type (COMPUTER, TABLET, SMARTPHONE, SPEAKER, TV, AVR, STB, AUDIO_DONGLE, GAME_CONSOLE, CAST_VIDEO, CAST_AUDIO, AUTOMOBILE, WEARABLE, UNKNOWN_SPOTIFY, CAR_THING, UNKNOWN) ###
preferredLocale = "en" ### Preferred locale ###

[auth] ### Authentication ###
strategy = "ZEROCONF" # Strategy (USER_PASS, ZEROCONF, BLOB, FACEBOOK)
username = "" # Spotify username (BLOB, USER_PASS only)
password = "" # Spotify password (USER_PASS only)
blob = "" # Spotify authentication blob (BLOB only)

[zeroconf] ### Zeroconf ###
listenPort = -1 # Listen on this port (`-1` for random)
listenAll = true # Listen on all interfaces (overrides `zeroconf.interfaces`)
interfaces = "" # Listen on these interfaces (comma separated list of names)

[cache] ### Cache ###
enabled = true # Cache enabled
dir = "./cache/"
doCleanUp = true

[preload] ### Preload ###
enabled = true # Preload enabled

[time] ### Time correction ###
synchronizationMethod = "NTP" # Time synchronization method (NTP, PING, MELODY, MANUAL)
manualCorrection = 0 # Manual time correction in millis

[player] ### Player ###
autoplayEnabled = true # Autoplay similar songs when your music ends
preferredAudioQuality = "VORBIS_160" # Preferred audio quality (VORBIS_96, VORBIS_160, VORBIS_320)
enableNormalisation = true # Whether to apply the Spotify loudness normalisation
normalisationPregain = 0.0 # Normalisation pregain
initialVolume = 65536 # Initial volume (0-65536)
logAvailableMixers = true # Log available mixers
mixerSearchKeywords = "" # Mixer/backend search keywords (semicolon separated)
crossfadeDuration = 0 # Crossfade overlap time (in milliseconds)
output = "MIXER" # Audio output device (MIXER, PIPE, STDOUT)
releaseLineDelay = 20 # Release mixer line after set delay (in seconds)
pipe = "" # Output raw (signed) PCM to this file (`player.output` must be PIPE)

After editing restart the daemon by running: sudo systemctl restart spocon

Building the Package Yourself

Requirements

cd Vagrant
vagrant up # start your environment
vagrant ssh # login into you environment
cd workspace
ansible-playbook Ansible/start.yml -e librespot_version=0.5.2 -e spocon_version=0.14.0

There should be a built Debian package (a .deb file) in your project directory /package.

Troubleshooting

My volume on Spotify is 100% and it’s still too quiet!

Have you tried turning the volume up using the command alsamixer?

My Raspberry Pi does not use my USB sound card!

Try to replace the following in the file /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf:

defaults.ctl.card 0
defaults.pcm.card 0

with

defaults.ctl.card 1
defaults.pcm.card 1

The audio output buzzes a few seconds after audio stops!

This is likely to be ALSA’s Dynamic Audio Power Management (DAPM) shutting down the sound module of your device to save power. If you want to disable this feature, create a file called snd_soc_core.conf in /etc/modprobe.d with this line in:

options snd_soc_core pmdown_time -1

Once you reboot and play some sound, the issue should be gone.

Other issues

File an issue and if we get it sorted, I’ll add to this list.

Donations

(I’d rather you donate to librespot-java instead, but there’s no public address for those folks.)

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Paul Lietar for librespot (and its additional authors) and David Cooper