There are a few things I want to set up for audio / media in my house. The house isn't very large, but it has two levels, plus the basement (which is living space, and where my linux box is). My linux box is my media server (well, it usually is, but my partition table has disappeared on one drive and... that's a whole other story.)
I am thinking about speakers at least in the kitchen and the bedroom. Converting the sound system hooked up to my TV would be nice, too.
I don't like the range on bluetooth for this application. The $25 1x2" bluetooth gadget I have plugged into my living room sound system is ok, but doesn't seem to have the range or behaviour I'd like, in actuality. So I was thinking about wifi. However wifi speakers are quite expensive, and seem very overpriced to me ($250-$800? Seriously?)
Like my little $25 bluetooth->3.5mm gadget, I was hoping to find something simple like that in wifi flavour, but I haven't come across anything. Do these even exist?
The other option is getting a Raspberry Pi (which has wifi or ethernet and a 3.5mm audio jack) and setting up as a DLNA client for speakers / speakers systems that have a 3.5 input. When researching this they often talk about setting up the Pi and also setting up a phone to be the client that selects the music or playlist, but it occoured to me that my old HTC phone has both wifi and a 3.5 input.... so I can probably just use the phone to perform the function "as the Pi" in one of my three areas. I can use my current phone or tablet as the control devices. Has anyone here mucked around with this stuff already? Any warnings for this setup, or alternate recommendations?
My HTC phone is currently unrooted and running Gingerbread, I think. I will know when I can find the proprietary charger. No objections to rooting it and trying to install whatever I please on there. My current phone is a Blackberry, but I'm running Snap. My tablet is also running Android (KitKat).