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The Tuneshine

A short video where I’m taking a look at the Tuneshine, an album-art display device for digital music. This one came about following a suggestion received under the ITIC2 video back in July. After looking at the website it intrigued me, so I put in an order and it turned up early this week.

A few more people have since recommended the Tuneshine to me, so I suspect this one has been doing the rounds on social media.

https://youtu.be/6Y_AfSzjjL0

It’s only a quick video, but I feel it's enough to cover everything that needed to be said.

I can’t think of anything else of note to add this time so I’ll just say, enjoy the weekend. I’m going to take my weekend off - then next week I’m going to move straight on to attempting a fiddly repair… belts at the ready.

The Tuneshine The Tuneshine

Comments

Just set my unit up, it took only a couple minutes to link to Sonos - nice design!

Ian Cull

No worries; it doesn't affect me in the slightest, other than curiousity about the results. 😁

Grace Robbins

Flippin eck, it completely went out of my mind. That’s a shame as it would have been an interesting test. My apologies.

Techmoan

Did you do the alternative thumbnail test this week?

Grace Robbins

AI images manage to sit in that uncanny valley of being recognisable and yet there’s always something clearly wrong. I appreciate it though, that MR2 never looked shinier.

Techmoan

It varies, but you’ll typically get at least 480x480

Tobias Butler

Awesome! Appreciate it, Craig

Tobias Butler

YouTube commenters are demonstrating the truth of "typing out miserable crap for no good reason." They vigorously refuse to see the positives and the fun of the thing. On a totally separate topic, Mat... I created this AI photo that only you may (or may not) have nostalgia for: https://ibb.co/CmkTy6t Just a bit of fun. 😌

Grace Robbins

Youtube comments are always full of people telling everyone (which turns out to be no one) what they won’t be buying. I try every time to explain that no one cares what you’re *not* doing - but the message never lands. I really hoped “I don’t give a stuff if anyone else buys one” - might be a stronger hint, but nope they just carry on telling everyone what they’re not buying because this is fascinating and useful information for all. In the end though it’s the old hollow vessel situation. People who don’t buy things like to shout about it, people who order something, keep that information to themselves.

Techmoan

It's somehow tragic that some people in the YT comments judge the Tuneshine by its pixels-per-buck ratio. For some it seems hard to grasp that sometimes it's the limitations that make something interesting. Why paint a picture in oil when photos from a smartphone are so much clearer and closer to reality...

Tunix

Add Open Scrobbler to that equation and you can (kind of) add physical media plays to that "good 'ol" list as well. (Open Scrobbler allows you to send/queue Lastfm plays that start in the future, so they are sort of in sync with realtime). I use Last.fm for stats and info, ie. what were my last months most played artists/albums etc. so I mostly keep it updated with physical media plays as well.

Shrike

Order #1852 coming your way, Tobias, from Down Under! 😊

Craig Lemon

I like this. I like the fact it is more than of a suggestion of the image, not full Hi Res. The wood version would look nice next to my vintage Technics HiFi setup. I’d stain it the colour which matches my wood units, and boom… sorted. £150+ I couldn’t do, but, I’ll definitely keep my eye on this products, for sure. Thanks Matt Lee

Lee Coles

That’s good to know.

Chris Horry

$200 is closer to £150 ;)

Tobias Butler

That’s exactly what it is!

Tobias Butler

You should check out Petru Designs! They have a good spectrum analyzer in a nice wood case

Tobias Butler

Definitely easier on the eyes in person

Tobias Butler

Sounds like a fun project!!

Tobias Butler

Haha I did this and I came to the don’t buy conclusion for my personal usage anyway. Thank you

Lee

It’s not really possible to read regular sized text as it’s only 96x96 pixels - however if the font gets big enough sometimes you can read it - but its got to be really big - like an album cover that just reads RUN DMC or similar. To get an idea as to how it looks in person you could try playing this video on an iPad/Laptop/Phone etc and position it perhaps ten feet away.

Techmoan

Hi, the Phil Collins photo looks good from the sofa but how does text look from sofa distance? I'd like to think the albums shown earlier in the video would have readable text from the Phil Collins photo distance? I'd consider buying if so.

Lee

I do have one more karaoke set to explore so you never know - they need every bit of help they can get.

Techmoan

Not related to the video, but I just thought of a great title if you do another karaoke episode. "Carrie, are you ok?"

Novel

Thrilled to see this! I made a DIY version a year ago using a Pixoo64 display (basically the same thing with a diffuser sheet and grid over the LEDs), and my Home Assistant automation setup. My version goes a step further in that it also displays the artwork for whatever you're watching on the TV (TV shows, movies, even the thumbnail for YouTube videos), completely pointless information on karaoke night (the name of the next singer/song), and album art at all other times – which supports all the music services as well my local file collection. Even after a year I'm still not tired of the novelty of playing something and seeing the artwork pop up.

tiredjohn

I must confess I had to stop the video half way because my only working eye started to throb trying to focus. I hope it's easier on the eye(s) in person as I'm sure that's just an artifact of the already hard process of recording a screen, especially a very low resolution one like this so I definitely don't blame you! Still, a very interesting concept.

Chris Horry

The first few tracks I tried were all my own music. There’s a bit in the video where I play a Beethoven track from the YouTube audio library and the thumbnail is a close up of the Teac O’Casse I added from one of my other videos.

Techmoan

Do you know if this displays artwork for iTunes-purchased music that's played from the Apple Music app? Or does it only show artwork for the Apple Music streaming service?

Chance

Short, sweet and a cat at the end. Just perfect for the topic.

J Ruonti

love the video and the device. :)

Killerhund

I want that to have a spectrum analyser as well !

Martin Dooley

That looks remarkably like a module for a large video screen. A couple of years ago, English hardware hacker Mike Harrison (mikeselectricstuff on Youtube and elsewhere) did an event when he was in Pasadena California for the Hackaday Superconference, where a bunch of hackers (including Yours Truly) got together to see if we could reverse-engineer a panel from an LED Jumbotron. He had a bunch of those modules and gave them away to the hackers; I still have it somewhere. The reverse-engineering effort was unsuccessful that evening and though I recorded some video, I never published it. But as I understand, there were some people who had some success later; maybe the guy who makes these is one of the hackers who were there that evening? Anyway, good to see that you still have that DCC-175. Speaking of reverse-engineering: I now know exactly how it communicates with a computer and I'm trying to work on a device to connect it to a USB port. Unfortunately the way it's going, it might take a while before it's done...

Jac Goudsmit

I was holding out for Napster and LimeWire 🤭

Randall Jennings

How high of a resolution can you get from the services? >64x64?

Randall Jennings

I do have the 1st World Problem that running the big screen TV is overkill, but I think I could run a monitor on an old computer to accomplish the same thing — probably for “free” (already sunk cost of a retired computer).

Randall Jennings

Would love it if it were 4x the resolution, maybe a tad larger too, not £200/$200, and not a single-idea product. …but besides all that it looks AWESOME!

Randall Jennings

Oh I had forgotten about that! I went to Lastfm as Pandora was banned. I think it didn't work well when I moved to Sweden... Something like that.

Raul Ramos

Ah didn't know that, just assumed they had a monopoly.

Lord Brannigan-7

Soundhound seems to be the major one!

Tobias Butler

You can check whether your preferred way to listen to music has a way to connect to last.fm! Many do and it’s a good way to use Tuneshine with a good ‘ol digital mp3/wav/flac collection.

Tobias Butler

I was joking, I think it's great as it is, but I was surprised to find there actually IS a Shazzam API... Having said that do they have any rivals including open source type ones?

Lord Brannigan-7

This is a nice project! I don't have any streaming services through. I liked Pandora when it came out but then it was banned in Europe and that was it. A brief encounter with Spotify a few years back made me recoil

Raul Ramos

For me that would be the way too, I guess building it would be a lot more fun than actually using it... (and I anyway don't use streaming music so...)

MrHammond

Cute kitty!

Arthur Robillard

Thanks for ordering, Ian!

Tobias Butler

Cool!! I might look in to this as a future option. Thanks for the tip!

Tobias Butler

Oh Good. Hate to lose the cat. Pretty thing.

Stephen Hamme

Bloody hell, it looks perfect as you have situated it! At at bit of a distance, it really does look right for the display, centered as well. Were it not pointed out at first it might surprise some. Bravo.

Stephen Hamme

Sorry...that was meant more for the folks who didn't like the price.

Mike in Texas

Impressive project! It seems to be really polished, both the hardware and the software. You'd think it was an industrial product rather than a DIY project. A lot of work must have gone into the device. I am also a little envious... Many many years ago, friends and I tinkered with hand-wired 16x16 LED matrices in homemade wooden housings, controlled by an 8-bit microcontroller. Merely amateur level and orders of magnitude simpler than the Tuneshine. No wifi (wired UART instead), purely monochrome, just for simple animations and games like Tetris. It was more about the fun of tinkering than anything else. I apologize if this comes across as a plug (it's not meant as such). I mention this here because we made these simple devices look more elegant than they actually were with one secret ingredient: Frosted, slightly transparent black plexiglass: https://gallery.ctdo.de/picture.php?/1834/category/102 I can well imagine that this would also look very good on the Tuneshine. PLEXIGLAS® LED (truLED), Black & White 9H04 SC is the material used for the device in the picture.

Tunix

Order placed tonight, after rapid tech support response from Tobias (confirming Pandora via Sonos works)

Ian Cull

The long term emergency plan is to have a community firmware for those who want to to keep it going! But I am the biggest Tuneshine fan out there so as long as my device works, yours will too

Tobias Butler

It's a nice device, but what will happen when the app goes offline? I wish as late as possible.

CheeseParis

Thank you! You too!

Tobias Butler

You’re right about the Patreon dates - I still can’t use this app and I’ve had a fair bit of practice. Anyway, thanks for making the Tuneshine and I’ll be interested to see what you come up with in the future. Take care. Oh and the video should go live a week on Saturday…so that’s the 7th Sept.

Techmoan

Hoping to make this happen in the future! Wanted to keep the tech simple for the first version (e.g. no microphone)

Tobias Butler

You might be looking at my original Patreon join date—I'll admit that I only just joined your Patreon today after I was tipped off about the video by a potential customer with a question. But I've been a fan of your YouTube channel for a while and I'm happy to support! Thanks for the warning—running social media for Tuneshine I've developed slightly thicker skin about the social media comments. The attitude you have reflects my own—it's by no means an essential product, it's just a fun bonus for music lovers, and there's no need to be mad if it's not for you. Thanks again and enjoy!

Tobias Butler

It's fun to do as a DIY project! The parts would cost quite a bit more than that, though—closer to £100 most likely

Tobias Butler

Hey Tobias you’ve been here since Sept 2017 - that’s serendipity (if I’m using that word correctly) - anyway I suppose I don’t need to send you that email now. If I were you I’d ignore the comments on YT when it goes live as they always go completely off the rails…however you might see a few extra orders come in. Thanks for your support and I’m glad I could pay some of it back.

Techmoan

DIY route is a lot of fun! That's how I started out :)

Tobias Butler

Thank you! It keeps me busy :)

Tobias Butler

Wow! Tuneshine creator here—thanks so much for taking a look at Tuneshine. Honored that it now has a permanent place in your home! With regards to how long it takes for the artwork to disappear—that is a quirk about the Apple Music integration. With some cleverness on my part, I'm able to detect when you start playing a new song on Apple Music, but it doesn't tell me when the song ends (I have to make a guess based on the song duration). Because there can be a delay in learning of a track change (another quirk of the integration), I've added a buffer time to ensure that album art transitions smoothly when playing through a playlist. 9 minutes seems longer than you should be seeing, though! I'll look in to that. Thanks again!

Tobias Butler

That's quite a novel idea. It wouldn't be too hard to DIY for about £40 but it wouldn't be as polished but given the correct Github downloads onto an ESP32, I suspect the app would work with a home made one. These panels can be chained together too so you could add 4 and have 4x the resolution with a bit of code change.

evilution

I think that might be marks on the glass - I've been meaning to check if the glass doors needs a clean the next time there's good daylight in the room.

Techmoan

Gangsta thug cat. Keeping the hood safe for his peeps... and cat ladies.

Grace Robbins

Great 👍🏻, I hope it helps somewhat. I happened to notice (as I watched the video on my television) strange artifacts on the Tuneshine as it was filmed diagonally within your TV console; odd. But most of us (should) know these things don't look like that in person.

Grace Robbins

Maybe next time.

Techmoan

I realised after making the video that the video recordings of the display were all shot a bit too close. I was looking at them through a small camera screen and then the preview window in the corner of the editor and it looked good. When I first saw the video full screen I was a bit disappointed. I like your thumbnail more than mine. I'll try it out as an alternative when the video goes live and see if it manages to attract more viewers.

Techmoan

It looks a bit odd where it is, but it's the only space left - I've isolated it with foam feet from the sub its sitting on and I've really been enjoying listening to it. I've been meaning to listen to more Radio 4 & 4ex and so far it's doing the trick.

Techmoan

Ahhh you got me at ‘Phil’..! Can’t wait to check this one out tomorrow morning when I go for my coffee. A Techmoan morning is a great morning. Nice one, Matt. Lee 😁

Lee Coles

The cat got into yet another fight last night and this morning I really thought he was dead for a moment as I couldn't get him to move. Fortunately he's coming around now, but for a brief moment this might have been the last video of him.

Techmoan

• But Mat - No Jacket Required. 😋 • The camera wiggle at 2:25 is a surprisingly cool effect. • For a brief moment I was dubious about the Tuneshine until you mentioned one man is hand-making them. That's really impressive considering the over-abundance of mass-produced fluff being made nowadays. • The 'Guess the Album' game was fun. • I loved your introductory montage of the devices with the albums. 🧡 • I see your reflection in your TV; hello 👋. • MP3 players - the cheap ones I owned back in the day had too many songs uploaded onto them - without a user-friendly interface, it became frustrating to locate a particular song I wanted to listen to. That, including inconsistent sound quality of 'shared' MP3s, put me off the devices. • This really looks great the further away you are from it - perfect for your use-case. • I hope you have a lovely weekend getaway planned 😃 • Thumbnail suggestion - perhaps include product icon: https://www.imghippo.com/i/5wzeC1725051891.png Have fun and take care. 🤍

Grace Robbins

What an excellent little device. Good video, Mat. Glad you and the missus were happy with both it and the Bose. My dad [RIP] had one of those for years, and it always sounded good. Basement room with his treadmill, it REALLY sounded good.

Stephen Hamme

Thanks for making me want yet another Techmoan-inspired purchase; "Discipline, 007, discipline." It's good to see both you and Bees Knees are doing well. And it seems the cat likes your setup as well. A nice video.

CrimsonPig808

Now if it could shazzam my minidisc- and cassette-based music, I'd have placed an order already!

CBits Tech

It's working now, thanks for checking. I couldn't write a comment at all, the compose box was missing. It's there now though. Probably a glitch in the matrix. Thanks.

CBits Tech

Maybe you could - but I definitely can't. I'll leave the clever stuff to the clever people.

Techmoan

Nope - can't find anything.

Techmoan

I haven't turned comments off - perhaps you used a word that put you in spam - I'll have a look.

Techmoan

Or you can diy https://www.hackster.io/news/kyle-johnson-s-home-streaming-system-gets-chunky-album-art-visualization-on-a-64x64-rgb-led-matrix-71107071b8f2

Mike in Texas

Pretty cool, pretty pricey, but I think he's going to be busy with orders when this goes live. Are comments turned off on YouTube, or have I been banned 😁

CBits Tech

That's a neat little device, pretty impressive it's just one person building them hand.

Chris Munch

Yes - whenever I show something that is currently on sale , there’s a sizeable contingent on YT that fall over themselves to tell me exactly why they don’t want one. The only thing less interesting that having someone tell you all about their previous night’s dream in excruciating detail - is hearing what someone *isn’t* buying. If someone were to order a million of these, or zero, my life remains totally unchanged.

Techmoan

"Frankly, I couldn't give a flying stuff if anyone else bought one. It's none of my concern." (cat wanders into shot and grooms itself)

Matthew Lawrenson

What, no built in Shazzam?? RUBBISH!

Lord Brannigan-7


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