Speaker Spine

The project aims to create a cost-effective whole-house audio system using Bluetooth receivers distributed throughout the home. Receivers connect to Bluetooth-compatible devices (i.e. phones), receive audio information, and forward the data over Ethernet to a central node. The central node will decide which stream of audio will go to which speaker system zone. These Ethernet audio signals will then be sent to DACs to translate the data from digital to analog to be played by a speaker. The DAC output will be connected to a distribution amplifier and, finally, to the speaker network. The system will include multiple microcontrollers to control the Bluetooth receivers through SPI communication and send the received Bluetooth signal over Ethernet. The central node will be a microprocessor unit set to receive all the streams of Bluetooth audio signals and send that data to the user-specified speaker zones. This network aims to offer functionality similar to expensive systems like Sonos at a fraction of the cost by leveraging DIY electronics to achieve networked audio distribution.