Here’s my first build project. The goal was to drive three zones with ceiling speakers in an open plan kitchen. The system would be placed in a data cab where wired Ethernet and speaker connections are available.
I started small with just an up2stream amp 4. I wanted to know how easy these devices would be to control with the app.
By picking the V4 I figured that should I need to beef this up I could use two to drive one zone in the future. Power supply was just an off the Amazon shelf device. Ceiling speakers are Yamaha. With one working I added a second to see how easy and reliable grouping the amps would be. For the third zone, I saved some cash and bought a V3 amp
You can see the three boards in the picture. But now I have added a DC to DC converter to give me the 5V supply I needed for the Ethernet switch that I have canibalised.
The case is an ABS plastic thing from R/S Components.
For the testing process, I mostly attempted to connect via Wi-Fi, as I am yet to own the house with the data cab, and connecting by wired meant moving to another room. Despite being right on top of a wireless access point connecting with wireless was hopeless once I had more than one device to connect. So I moved to a room where I could more easily access my wired network. Once on a wired network it worked flawlessly. I don not intend to use any other inputs other than the network so have not tested for them.
Some suggestions. I get that maintaining documentation is pain and the device comes with minimal documentation. These forums are therefore vital. How about a community maintained wiki? So it is easier to find solutions or to understand the morse code signals that are necessary to tap on the “power button” to reset the device and its Wi-Fi.
I was never able to successfully setup a device with it set up as an access point. I am convinced that doesn’t work. When the device is enabled the connection fails repeatedly. Perhaps this is an issue with my IOS based devices. More documentation here too please.
A few months yet before I move to the new house and then we can do some more thorough soak testing.