If you have ever wanted to use an arduino as an MP3 player, then the Anniken Andee MP3 Player might be just what you’re looking for. By using your current smartphone as a Bluetooth remote control, this handy project allows you to listen to your entire music library through headphones or speakers, (given you do a little assembly and coding) using an Arduino.
To begin with, the Player does require an additional two Arduino shields, alongside an Arduino Uno. A “Sparkfun MP3 Player Arduino Shield” and an “Annikken Andee”. Of course on top of that you will need a micro SD to store your songs of choice on, your phone to use as a remote, and something to listen with.
The trick lies within the Annikken Andee, a Bluetooth shield which when connected to the Arduino, allows communication with your smart device using it’s Bluetooth connectivity. Simple User Interfaces can easily be created and displayed on your phone, by writing the code within the Arduino IDE. This is made even easier by all the tutorials and examples within the Anniken Andee library. This can be found here.
Understandably you must first download the app from either the Google play store or the Apple store for android and IOS respectively, both of which are free.
Assembly is simple enough, consisting only of mounting the Sparkfun directly onto the Arduino uno and the Annikken Andee directly onto that. Programming, too, is relatively straight forward, given downloadable software libraries, and needing only two lines of code to ensure the system works. This is required because both the MP3 shield and the Annikken Andee require Pin 8 on the Arduino Uno, as a Reset signal line for the former and as a Chip Selection pin for the latter. However, fortunately enough, the Annikken can also use Pin 5 for Chip Selection and the coding simply tells the Arduino to use this as opposed to 8 so that both shields can communicate with the Arduino.
After the code is then uploaded to the Arduino with the new changes in place, the MP3 player is ready to be used. A micro SD card can be inserted into the MP3 shield with your selected tracks on (which unfortunately must be labeled as Track001, Track002 etc). Then, pair your phone with your device and when the app is opened, you are free to listen to all your songs as you desire.
For a step by step guide on how to build your own, Instructables has a great tutorial explaining every thing you need to do.