Hidden RFID Home Automation Jukebox with Raspberry Pi Zero

Sure, you can yell at your Google Home to play a certain song, but if you’d rather not appear crazy to uninformed bystanders, or perhaps wake up your napping children or animals, then this RFID card reader by hacker “hoveeman” could be just the solution.

The jukebox-like device takes the form of a Raspberry Pi Zero W setup, cleverly concealed with the necessary hub, power supply, and reader in an end table between one of its drawers and its side.

When a particular RFID card, printed with appropriate album art, is placed beside the hidden reader, the Pi signals the Home Assistant application running on another computer to play music. The corresponding playlist then emanates from the Google Home and Chromecast Audio speakers throughout the house. While this would negate the benefits of not waking people up, at least they wouldn’t question your sanity.

If you’d like to recreate your own system, code and additioanl details can be found on the project’s GitHub page. hoveeman does recomend using a Raspberry Pi 3 if you’re going to run Home Assistant and the RFID cards on the same machine, but the Zero W works well in his application.

Be sure to check it out on in the video below. It looks great, but keeping the music cards nicely organized will certainly be a challenge!