Honestly, I didn’t know I needed a Raspberry Pi and Volumio until about two weeks ago. I already have various devices for listening to music and thought I didn’t need yet another player. However, the office sound system broke down and it’s been weeks without any music since they haven’t managed to fix it. A colleague brought an old radio cassette player just so we could listen to something, but the signal was poor, it was noisy, and the sound quality was terrible. While searching for a solution, I remembered that we had a spare Raspberry Pi lying around, so I started exploring which platform would be the best fit.
I tried Volumio first, but I didn’t stop there—I tested other platforms as well. In the end, Volumio seemed the most complete. Along the way, I also discovered internet radio stations, something I hadn’t really looked into before. It turned out I needed a new player at home as well, so I set up not one, but two Volumio players—one for the garage and another for the house.
The only thing missing from Volumio, which other platforms had and I needed, was a more advanced sleep and alarm mode. That’s when I decided to develop a plugin to cover that functionality. Even though I knew nothing about Node.js or Volumio, and I’m not a professional programmer, I took on the challenge. Seven days later, with the help of ChatGPT and the frustrations of coding in an unfamiliar environment, it’s now in beta on the plugin store. Now, Volumio has everything I need.
You can find the plugin in the Beta plugin store under the category “System Tools.” Thanks to @balbuze for reviewing and approving it for beta so quickly, and also for the suggestions!