Setting up a Bluetooth Speaker from the command line on a raspberry Pi Zero W

bt_speaker-raspberry_pi-zero_w.md

The setup of a bluetooth speaker on a Pi Zero W is pretty touchy.

Please get in touch via Twitter @actuino or http://www.actuino.fr/ if you've got comments or improvements to this quick draft.

First checks

• Use a solid power source
• check the speaker works on another hardware (android phone f.i.)
• make sure you've updated your Raspbian, install and run rpi-update just in case.

In case of compatibility doubt

• Use a raspbian Pixel, run sudo apt-get update then sudo apt-get dist-upgrade and reboot.
• use the graphical widget to pair and connect your speaker. You may have to try twice or more.

What to install?

pi-bluetooth and bluez are already installed on recent Raspbian.

Install:

sudo apt-get install pulseaudio pulseaudio-module-bluetooth

(without this module, you get messages like "bluetoothd[5556]: a2dp-sink profile connect failed for 00:1D:43:6D:03:26: Protocol not available")

Extra steps

Add your pi user to the bluetooth group

sudo usermod -G bluetooth -a pi

sudo reboot

Start a pulseaudio server

pulseaudio --start

If it complains about not being able to spawn a local server, run

pax11publish -r; /usr/bin/pulseaudio --start

Pair and connect

run bluetoothctl

use "help" if you want more details about the available commands. The first time, you'll have to run the following:

• power on
• agent on
• scan on
• wait for the device to be discovered, note it's address (you can then use tab for auto-completion)
• pair <dev>
• trust <dev>
• connect <dev> wait for the confirmation, then
• quit

test : aplay something.wav

edit /etc/pulse/default.pa , add

# automatically switch to newly-connected devices
load-module module-switch-on-connect

edit /etc/bluetooth/main.conf, at the end of the file, add AutoEnable in the existing Policy section :

[Policy]
AutoEnable=true

After a reboot

You may need to:

• pulseaudio --start

(This last step was not useful for me):

• bluetoothctl -a then wait and quit when (auto) connected

Still have to sort out

• Sometimes, the BT speaker disconnects itself, but it's still viewed as "connected" from the Pi. From this point, nothing will fix it exept a Pi reboot.