Westinghouse H816L5 Clock Spotify Conversion

Westinghouse H816L5 Clock Spotify Conversion

Basically, If you own a 1960s Westinghouse H816L5 and want to install a RPI4 in it without chopping it up too much to use Spotify, this is for you. Or if you need to reprint a missing piece, these models might help you out.

If you don't own one already and are a brave person that is great at printing supports, then you can try to print a new one from the replacement mockups I modeled. (I have never tried this, and if you do, please, please, let me know how it goes).

https://github.com/MacGyverr/Westinghouse-Spotify-Clock

Overview

I owned a broken H816L5 and wanted to give it some new life so I replicated the Westinghouse H816L5 clock in TinkerCAD to design parts for mounting a Raspberry Pi and a modern clock, transforming it into a Spotify speaker while keeping the original shell mostly intact.

• TinkerCAD Model: Westinghouse H816L5 Clock Conversion - WIP

The project involved some modifications to the original structure, you'll need to grind down the internal lip behind the volume knob. It uses Raspotify and Spotipy, controlled by a Python script. It features three rotary encoders for track control/shuffle, power/play/pause/volume, and playlist navigation.

Hardware Requirements

• Raspberry Pi 4
• MIC ULTRA+ (as an amplifier) Link
• 3 Rotary Encoders
• 3 WS2812B LEDs
• Rotary Encoder #1 to GPIO pins 16, 12, 26 (Clock, Data, Button)
• Rotary Encoder #2 to GPIO pins 5, 6, 13 (Clock, Data, Button)
• Rotary Encoder #3 to GPIO pins 22, 27, 17 (Clock, Data, Button)
• Radio Setting Clock
• New 4" Shielded Speaker
• WS2812B to GPIO pin 10 (Data for LEDs)

Software

• Raspberry Pi OS
• Raspotify
• Spotipy
• Spotify API

Installation and Setup

1. Prepare the Raspberry Pi:

sudo apt-get -y update 
sudo apt-get -y upgrade 
sudo apt-get -y install git pip espeak

 2. Configure Rotary Encoders in config.txt:

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

Add the following lines

dtoverlay=rotary-encoder,pin_a=16,pin_b=12,relative_axis=1 
dtoverlay=gpio-key,gpio=26,keycode=30,label="A" 
dtoverlay=rotary-encoder,pin_a=5,pin_b=6,relative_axis=1 
dtoverlay=gpio-key,gpio=13,keycode=48,label="B" 
dtoverlay=rotary-encoder,pin_a=22,pin_b=27,relative_axis=1 
dtoverlay=gpio-key,gpio=17,keycode=46,label="C" 

After editing, reboot and test with evtest. They are added this way for reliability and readability under Python.

3. Install Audio Hat Drivers for MIC ULTRA+:

git clone https://github.com/RASPIAUDIO/ultra2 
cd ultra2 
sudo ./install.sh sudo reboot 

4. Install and Configure Raspotify:

* Follow the guide at [Raspotify](https://dtcooper.github.io/raspotify/)
* Edit /etc/raspotify/conf as per the provided conf file.
* Restart the service and set volumes using alsamixer.

5. Install Spotipy and Additional Packages for LEDs and TTS prompts:

sudo pip install spotipy 
sudo pip install adafruit-circuitpython-neopixel 
sudo pip3 install pyttsx3 

6. Setup the primary Python Script for Control:

mkdir westinghouse 
cd westinghouse/ 
nano monitor_input.py

Paste in the contents of the "monitor_input.py" file

chmod +x monitor_input.py 

7. Configure Spotify API Credentials:

export SPOTIPY_CLIENT_ID='xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx' export SPOTIPY_CLIENT_SECRET='xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx' export SPOTIPY_REDIRECT_URI='http://localhost:8080/callback' 

8. Setup Python Script as a Service:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/monitor_input.py.service

Paste in the contents of the "monitor_input.py.service" file.

Set it as a service (so it will auto-start and reload if it crashes).

sudo systemctl enable monitor_input.py 
sudo systemctl daemon-reload 
sudo systemctl start monitor_input.py systemctl | grep running 

9. Automatic Reboot Setup: 

sudo crontab -e

Add this line for nightly reboot

0 2*** /sbin/shutdown -r now

Additional Notes

• Wiring diagram will be added soon.
• Even though it wasn't meant to create a new clock from scratch the TinkerCAD files allow for printing the complete clock and even creating molds for a new lens. (untested)
• The system is set to read only "Overlay" mode and reboots nightly for stability.
• It can be controlled by any computer or phone remotely via the normal Spotify App, it is using the Spotify API, there just is a custom program asking Spotify to make changes via the rotary knobs.
• I'm not a programmer, so after much trial and error the program works for what I needed it to do but not very well. If you can improve it or have an alternative I'd love to give it a try, feel free to fork my Github.
• Update on 2024-08-25: It looks like Spotify has removed some of the ways this software works, so you might want to hold off on going through the trouble until they stop changing things.

Video of it in action

Category: Audio