Is there a template pack with just VU meters and nothing else?
Yes, they are templates for Peppymeter Basic by @balbuze
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Dear Volumionauts,
Release 3.4.5 - “Connect Engine.”
A brief clinical report from the recovery ward.
@Wheaten walked into the sleep clinic a few weeks ago, dropped a prototype Spotify Soloist Connect plugin on the desk, and asked me to take a look at the metering integration. I looked. Then I kept looking. Then I could not stop looking. Forty-plus years of engineering and I still have not learned that “just take a look” is how obsessions start. The boolean flipped to on, and here we are.
What followed was a week of @Wheaten’s relentless 20-minute rule - every twenty minutes, @balbuze joined, another test, another edge case, another “what if I do this while it is doing that.” These men do not sleep. They test. Both - code and my patience. The result is a fully integrated Spotify Soloist Connect audio path that the screensaver now understands natively.
On the remote side, @Lee.Yan’s Pydroid Android work is now wired into the client behind a gated runtime check. Community-contributed, first tagged release, explicitly prototype. Read android/INSTALL.md before you touch it.
What landed in the screensaver:
Connect and Soloist - stock Spotify Connect and Soloist are exclusive. The Audio Source section shows only the active plugin’s meter switch. If someone runs both, Peppy hides both switches and refuses to rewrite either ALSA path until one is disabled. Soloist on modular ALSA runs meters through pcm.volumio with no changes needed. Soloist on DSD native gets its own pcm.spotify 4-channel meter path, named from the install marker so it survives reboots and plugin state changes.
Playback persist - Soloist sessions stay volatile for the entire session. Pause is still a genuine persist: freeze and countdown keep working, including on turntable skins. The persist file clears on volatile stop or handoff, not on pause. Progress no longer jumps on stale seek re-broadcasts.
Meter sensitivity - now goes -12 to +12 dB. Useful when a source is already hot and your needles are pinned at the right rail.
Theme gallery - portrait phones wrap correctly in two columns. Browse Theme previews refresh after you overwrite a theme without renaming anything.
ALSA and first play - meter FIFOs are held open so peppyalsa can start before the screensaver. First play should show needles without a restart.
What landed in the remote:
Client-side meter gain including negative dB, aligned with the plugin sensitivity control. Engine import path fix so PeppyMeter stays a proper package after install or update.
Android - Pydroid prototype with gated runtime support. Separate Get for Android pack tools. Install docs include PC commands, risk flags, and default to main. This is prototype territory. It works. It is not supported. If it breaks, the wrench is yours.
Upgrade notes - update the plugin first, then the remote client, both to 3.4.5. If you use Soloist, keep stock Spotify Connect disabled. After enabling Soloist integration, Apply and restart as prompted. If needles were dead on first play after boot, this is the FIFO-hold fix. Sensitivity at 0 dB is unchanged; only the range is wider.
Get it:
Remote - Release v3.4.5 - Connect Engine: Meter Gain and Android Client · foonerd/peppy_remote · GitHub
Experimental has been reset to match main for the next cycle. The head physician is still technically in recovery, but apparently the boolean does not have an off switch.
Kind Regards,
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