Car media server / player

[briscaF1]

Hi,

I guess this has been asked before but I couldn't find something similar enough to requirements.

I basically want something that will:

First step:
1. Be controllable via Wireless (Hotspot) or Bluetooth
1a. Run headless - be controlled via mobile phone (once set up).
2. Be able to serve media from a 64GB SD card (don't mind if this also houses the OS or is separate)
3. Be able to be powered off with the ignition (i.e. when ignition feed goes low, it starts to shut down)
-or-
4. Reliably powers off after a sleep period so as to not drain car battery. i.e. It never stays powered for more than 3 hours - it always shuts itself down. Thinking is inconvenience of having to start it up again less than having a flat battery every so often.

I imagine that the above could be a samba server effectively running on a Pi Zero W with some power control capability.

Second step:
6. Have an audio 3.5mm output wired to car stereo "AUX" input.
7. Run Volumio or similar to be able to play media into the stereo (whilst still also being a media server)

Notes:
a. The media server doesn't have to transcode: kodi or vlc running on the mobile device connected to it could just connect to a samba share.
b. Not sure if a Pi Zero W will have enough grunt to run a media server and Volumio

Thanks for any help.

[briscaF1]

Furthermore, while I think on...

If it is possible to get the Pi to "run from RAM" and it only saves critical data to flash when settings, for example, are changed, that'd be a better option. i.e. It could be turned off, at any time, without any power down control circuitry without fear of corrupting the SD card.

I'm thinking that if it is reading from flash for serving media then there's not a lot of reason for it to be storing data.

So, no swap and the OS loaded onto a temporary mount ? Is this even do-able with a PI ?

Thanks for any help

[briscaF1]

Final thought...

I guess this can easily be done with Libreelec running on a Pi.

Libreelec can presumably output to a hat/DAC if fitted.
Libreelec supports Samba so can act as a media server (no DLNA etc)

Just needs a mechanism to turn it on/off when required.

[melaw]

I am also in the middle of planning a cheap Pi car media player.

About power management - software shutdown will not be enough to prevent battery drain.
You will be left with 100mA, enough to prevent you from getting the car started after a week or so.

My solution is (will be) a battery cutoff which cuts the power to the Pi at ~13 volts, and a shutdown script to
shut down the Pi when the power got cut, using a small backup power source to keep at alive until it's down.

edit: backup power source could be a huge supercap, but of course there are better solutions.
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