I recently set up Volumio on RPi3 and use an android smartphone to control it. Previously, I would listen to music on a portable DAP and one thing I sorely miss is the playback buttons on a DAP — volume up/down, next/previous song, pause, power, etc.
The problem with using the buttons on my phone is that they don’t seem to work with any external devices when the display is off, and I believe this is an Android limitation. I’d like to know how others have handled this situation, and what solutions are available.
Here are some solutions I considered and my thoughts on each:
- An android app that enables the volume buttons to control other devices when the screen is off. – I haven’t found any yet.
- USB multimedia controllers (knobs) – there might be compatibility issues and I havent seen any good ones with next/previous buttons too.
- rotary encoder (volume knob) through RPi’s GPIO pins — Ok, but again, no next/previous control buttons.
- Pi Remote with IR remote control — If nothing else, then Ok, but I’d prefer a control that is specific to audio (rather than basically a TV remote).
- just had this idea: USB mouse! left/right click for next/previous, and scroll wheel for volume up/down… This would be sweet and straightforward to program?!
Again, I’d like to know what you guys are using. Any suggestions are welcome, even the ones on my list.