SPEAKER APP

The Speaker app is virtual Bluetooth speaker (A2DP sink). The app runs as a command-line executable, but also offers an optional simple web-browser-based user interface.

General Usage

You can invoke the app either as bumble-speaker when installed as command from pip, or python3 apps/speaker/speaker.py when running from a source distribution.

Usage: speaker.py [OPTIONS] TRANSPORT

  Run the speaker.

Options:
  --codec [sbc|aac]          [default: aac]
  --discover                 Discover remote endpoints once connected
  --output NAME              Send audio to this named output (may be used more
                             than once for multiple outputs)
  --ui-port HTTP_PORT        HTTP port for the UI server  [default: 7654]
  --connect ADDRESS_OR_NAME  Address or name to connect to
  --device-config FILENAME   Device configuration file
  --help                     Show this message and exit.

Connection

By default, the virtual speaker will wait for another device (like a phone or computer) to connect to it (and possibly pair). Alternatively, the speaker can be told to initiate a connection to a remote device, using the --connect option.

Outputs

The speaker can have one or more outputs. By default, the only output is a text display on the console, as well as a browser-based user interface if connected. In addition, a file output can be used, in which case the received audio data is saved to a specified file. Finally, if the host computer on which your are running the application has ffplay as an available command line executable, the @ffplay output can be selected, in which case the received audio will be played on the computer's builtin speakers via a pipe to ffplay. (see the ffplay documentation for details)

Web User Interface

When the speaker app starts, it prints out on the console the local URL at which you may point a browser (Chrome recommended for full functionality). The console line specifying the local UI URL will look like:

UI HTTP server at http://127.0.0.1:7654

By default, the web UI will show the status of the connection, as well as a realtime graph of the received audio bandwidth. In order to also hear the received audio, you need to click the Audio on button (this is due to the fact that most browsers will require some user interface with the page before granting access to the audio output APIs).

Examples

In the following examples, we use a single USB Bluetooth controllers usb:0. Other transports can be used of course.

Start the speaker and wait for a connection

$ bumble-speaker usb:0

Start the speaker and save the AAC audio to a file named audio.aac.

$ bumble-speaker --output audio.aac usb:0

Start the speaker and save the SBC audio to a file named audio.sbc.

$ bumble-speaker --codec sbc --output audio.sbc usb:0

Start the speaker and connect it to a phone at address B8:7B:C5:05:57:ED.

$ bumble-speaker --connect B8:7B:C5:05:57:ED usb:0