Loud-ESP Kits is a set of development boards designed to make audio development for the ESP platform easy and feature-rich.
Key properties of this kit
- It uses ESP chips as an MCU core, which has huge community support and adaptation
- It delivers 2-channel amplified high-quality audio ready to be connected to speakers of choice - no need to have an external amplifier. Therefore it is all you need to complete your audio projects
- It has low power consumption and built-in Li-Ion battery management - therefore it is a good choice for any sort of portable and wearable audio projects.
- It has a rich UX peripheral, most obviously a TFT screen with touch, but also an IR receiver, and header for physical controls, like a rotary encoder or joystick. Therefore it is a good choice for standalone user-facing audio projects.
MCU Core
- ESP32 Dual Core 32-bit LX6 microprocessor running at 240 MHz
- 16MB of flash storage
- 8MB of PSRAM
- CP2102 Serial communication/ Flashing chip
Battery management
- Li-Ion battery charging with charge status indication
- Battery overcharge and over-discharge protection
- Battery overcurrent protection
- Onboard 14500 battery holder or 2-pin connector for external battery (except Mini version)
- Battery voltage reading using built-in DAC
- Onboard power switch
Audio capabilities
- Dual I2S stereo DAC (MAX98537) with built-in D-Class amp
- 3W per channel on 4 Ohm load
- Up to 92% efficiency
- Onboard 5V boost converter
Peripheral
- 2.8'' 320x240 TFT Screen with Touch sensor (except Mini version)
- Wifi and BT
- IR reader (except the Mini version)
- RGB led, RGB LED strip header
- SDCard socket (except Mini version)
- JTAG header (except the Mini version)
- Rotary encoder/Joystick header (except the Mini version)
Other
- RESET and GPIO0 (FLASH) buttons
- Raspberry Pi 4 case mechanical compatibility
- Software samples for every piece of onboard peripheral
Please find more information in the hardware section
Please find more information in the firmware section
All samples are provided as Plarformio IDE projects. After installing it, open the sample project. Select the proper environment based on your dock. Run the Build and Upload commands to install necessary tools and libraries, and build and upload the project to the board. Communication and proper upload method selection will be handled by IDE automatically.
Follow the ESP8266Audio library guide. Default settings will work out of the box with ESP8266 and ESP32 boards. For ESP32C3 and ESP32S2 board please adjust pinout according to the above section
Squeezelite-ESP32 is a multimedia software suite, that started as a renderer (or player) of LMS (Logitech Media Server). Now it is extended with
- Spotify over-the-air player using SpotifyConnect (thanks to cspot)
- AirPlay controller (iPhone, iTunes ...) and enjoy synchronization multiroom as well (although it's AirPlay 1 only)
- Traditional Bluetooth device (iPhone, Android)
And LMS itself
- Streams your local music and connects to all major online music providers (Spotify, Deezer, Tidal, Qobuz) using Logitech Media Server - a.k.a LMS with multi-room audio synchronization.
- LMS can be extended by numerous plugins and can be controlled using a Web browser or dedicated applications (iPhone, Android).
- It can also send audio to UPnP, Sonos, Chromecast, and AirPlay speakers/devices.
All ESP32-based boards are tested with Squeezelite-ESP32 software, which can be flashed using nothing but web browser. You can use Squeezelite-ESP32 installer for that purpose.
Use Installer for ESP Audio Dock to flash firmware first. It has been preconfigured to work with ESP Audio boards and will configure all hardware automatically.
| Select the correct device first |  |
| Connect the device to the USB port and select it from the list |  |
Press Flash and wait around 2 minutes |
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| (Optional) You may enter the serial console to get more information |  |
Device is in recovery mode. Connect to squeezelite-299fac wifi network with squeezelite password (your network name suffix will be different) |
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| When redirected to the captive portal let the device scan wifi network and provide valid credentials |    |
| You can use provided IP address (http://192.168.1.99/ on the screenshot) to access settings page |  |
| (Optional) You may change device names to something close to your heart |  |
| Exit recovery |  |
You can use it now
| Bluetooth | Spotify Connect | AirPlay | LMS Renderer |
|---|---|---|---|
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You may support our work by ordering this product at Tindie and Elecrow