StreamCore32

A network music player for the ESP32-S3 with a VS1063A decoder: Spotify Connect, Qobuz Connect, DLNA / UPnP renderer, internet radio and SD card playback — controlled from the streaming apps, a web UI that works on phones, and an optional 2.7" e-paper touch display.

Derived from feelfreelinux/cspot.

Web UI	Phone	E-paper

• Spotify needs a Premium account and the client ID / secret of a Spotify developer app (details).
• Qobuz plays only 30 s previews without a paid subscription.

Features

• Spotify Connect — Ogg Vorbis 96 / 160 / 320 kbps, queue, shuffle, repeat, seek, take-over from other devices
• Qobuz Connect — MP3 or FLAC up to 24 bit / 192 kHz, queue, autoplay, all apps in sync
• DLNA / UPnP renderer — BubbleUPnP, Hi-Fi Cast, foobar2000, Kodi, Plex / Jellyfin, Home Assistant ...; gap-less, seeking, LPCM
• Internet radio — station search (radio-browser.info), favourites, song titles (ICY or polled), playlists
• SD card — MP3, FLAC, WAV, Ogg, AAC, M4A, WMA, MIDI; gap-less, tags, seeking, M3U playlists, hot plug
• Web UI (http://<device name>.local/) — player, queue, radio, file manager (upload / download / playlists), settings, live log; phone layout
• E-paper UI — player, queue, radio, file browser, settings with on-screen keyboard; the web UI's look
• One active source — starting one stops the other; every source has the same controls, the UIs hide what a source can't do
• Settings stored on the device; bass / treble (VS10xx), status LED colours, dark mode
• Crash reports on the SD card (reason, panic output, last log lines)
• Modular: every part can be switched off in menuconfig — e.g. a headless build without display

Hardware

Reference board: ESP32-S3 N16R8 (16 MB flash, 8 MB octal PSRAM), VS1063A module, GoodDisplay GDEY027T91 2.7" e-paper with FT6336 touch, BQ27220 fuel gauge, micro SD socket (SDMMC 1-bit), one SK6812 LED. Only the ESP32-S3 with PSRAM and the VS1063A are required; all pins are set in menuconfig.

Part	Default pins
VS1063A	SPI MOSI 5 · MISO 6 · CLK 4 · XCS 17 · XDCS 7 · XRESET 16 · DREQ 15
SD card	CMD 13 · CLK 12 · D0 11 · card detect 14
E-paper	SPI MOSI 41 · CLK 40 · CS 9 · DC 18 · RESET 48 · BUSY 47
I2C (touch, gauge)	SDA 2 · SCL 1 · touch INT 3 · RESET 46
Status LED	8

Build

Needs ESP-IDF 5.5 or newer and the nanopb Python dependencies (protobuf code is generated during the build):

. $IDF_PATH/export.sh
pip install protobuf grpcio-tools

cd targets/esp32
idf.py set-target esp32s3        # once
idf.py menuconfig                # StreamCore32 → ...
idf.py build flash monitor

mdns and led_strip come from the ESP-IDF component manager on the first build. There are no git submodules.

Configuration

Everything is in one menu:

StreamCore32
  Device                        device name, default WiFi
  Streaming sources
    [*] Spotify Connect   --->  quality, stay visible, client id / secret
    [*] Qobuz Connect     --->  quality
    [*] Internet radio
    [*] SD card player          (needs the SD card)
    [*] DLNA / UPnP renderer -> HTTP port
  Hardware
    Audio output (VS1053) --->  pins, SPI bus, buffer
    [*] SD card           --->  pins
    [*] E-paper display   --->  pins, icon size
    [*]   Touch panel     --->  pins
    [*] Battery (BQ27220) --->  I2C address
    I2C bus               --->  pins (with touch or battery)
    [*] Status LED        --->  pin, mode, brightness

A part's options only appear when it is enabled; a disabled part is not compiled. Without the e-paper display the firmware is headless (apps + web UI); the web UI hides what is not built in.

Your targets/esp32/sdkconfig holds the WiFi password and the Spotify secret — it is ignored by git. After an update that renames options, delete it and configure again.

First start

1. The device joins the WiFi from menuconfig (change it later in the web UI or on the display).
2. Open http://<device name>.local/ (default http://StreamCore32.local/).
3. It appears in Spotify ("Devices available"), Qobuz (Connect) and DLNA apps under the device name. The first Spotify / Qobuz start takes a moment (ids are fetched and stored).

Documentation

• Architecture — overview diagram, stream interface, audio path, start-up, tasks
• CHANGELOG

Component
streamcore	StreamBase, AudioControl, web UI server, zeroconf, logging, file probe
sc_app	application, StreamManager, settings, WiFi, crash log, LED, UIs
sc_spotify	Spotify Connect
sc_qobuz	Qobuz Connect
sc_dlna	DLNA / UPnP renderer
sc_webstream	internet radio
sc_sdfile	SD card player
bell	networking, utilities, VS1053 driver (reduced feelfreelinux/bell)
sc_sdcard · gdey027t91 · ft6x36 · bq27220 · i2c_bus	hardware drivers
eink_ui · eink_vg · Adafruit-GFX	e-paper UI toolkit, vector icons, graphics
targets/esp32	the ESP-IDF project

flowchart LR
  APPS(["Spotify / Qobuz apps"]) --> SP["sc_spotify"] & QB["sc_qobuz"]
  CP(["DLNA apps"]) --> DL["sc_dlna"]
  BR(["browser"]) --> APP["sc_app<br/>StreamManager"]
  DISP(["touch display"]) --> APP
  APP --> SP & QB & DL & WR["sc_webstream"] & SD["sc_sdfile"]
  SP & QB & DL & WR & SD --> AC["streamcore<br/>AudioControl"] --> VS["VS1053"]

Loading

Development

• E-paper UI on a PC: tools/scui_sim renders every page and checks the touch handling.
• DLNA tests on a PC: tools/dlna_test (protocol against Home Assistant's DLNA library, HTTP reader, probe).
• A new source: derive from StreamBase — see streamcore.
• Code style: .clang-format (Google based).

Known limitations

• Spotify: event reporting is not supported, plays do not show up in "recently played". New Spotify developer apps cannot be created at the moment.
• No over-the-air update yet (the partition table already has two app slots).
• The web UI loads the Material Symbols font from Google Fonts (icons need internet access in the browser).

Credits and license

StreamCore32 is licensed under the GNU GPL v3 (LICENSE.md).

Built on cspot and bell by feelfreelinux and contributors, with civetweb, nanopb, cJSON, nlohmann json (in bell/external), the Adafruit GFX Library, the Inter and DejaVu fonts and feather icons — see the licenses in the respective folders. Thanks to philippe44 for the AccessKeyFetcher work.