I  have an old model Raspberry Pi, Raspberry Pi Model B rev2, which I got five years ago. And I have a retired speakers. So I think, maybe I can make a bluetooth speaker system with this Pi.

I chaecked my inventory. Found two bluetooth USB dongles.  I think it is enough. After googling, I found this one.

Raspberry Pi Bluetooth+Airplay Audio Receiver combo

Go though the steps, I also read the comments of it. I did the following.

Step 1: Preparing the Pi

  • Download Raspbian image here. I download Raspbian Jessie Lite, the latest one for now.
  • Transfer image to sdcard using Win32 Disk Imager following instructions on www.raspberrypi.org.
  • Insert sdcard and power up
  • Important! Expand file system to full 8GB capacity
  • Reboot
  • Login as user pi (password: raspberry). Please note that for the rest of this guide it is assumed that you are logged in as “pi”.
  • Update operating system and reboot:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y upgrade
sudo reboot

Step 2: Installation

This script is from the comment of adenbeckitt. He modified the original script which is not compatible with Raspbian Jessie.

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ cd ~
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ git clone https://bitbucket.org/adenbeckitt/raspberry-pi-audio-receiver-install.git
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ cd raspberry-pi-audio-receiver-install/
pi@raspberrypi ~/raspberry-pi-audio-receiver-install $ ./runall.sh
Device name: RpiAudio

Step 3: Testing

From my cellphone, I can pair the Bluetooth dongle on my Raspberry Pi. Name of the device is RpiAudio, which I entered on installation.

The pin code is default 0000.

See attached screenshots

I can play music from my cellphone and the output to the speakers attached to the Raspberry Pi. But, there are two big problems.

  1. The Bluetooth connection is not stable.
  2. The sound is stuttering.

Now, I check the version of my Bluetooth dongle.

Enter the command in ssh window

hciconfig -a

HCI Version: 2.0 (0x3)

It is a Bluetooth 2.0

Comparing with the required Bluetooth 4.0.

Bluetooth Version  |  Max Speed  | Range

v2.0    |    ~200KB/s    |    10m

v3.0    |    ~3000KB/s    | 1m

v4.0    |    ~3000KB/s    |    60m

So. I think it is time to get a Bluetooth 4.0 dongle. I know my cellphone, Jianguo U1, supports Bluetooth 4.0.

David Yin

David is a blogger, geek, and web developer — founder of FreeInOutBoard.com. If you like his post, you can say thank you here

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