Lauschkiste

An open-source RFID audio player for kids. Put a card on the box and music or an audiobook starts. Made for the Raspberry Pi (from the Zero up), runs on any Linux computer, managed from any browser. Alpha software.

Lauschkiste is German: lauschen means to listen closely, die Kiste is the box.

Features

• RFID/NFC cards start albums, audiobooks, podcasts, radio stations or actions (volume, timers, shutdown, ...)
• Audiobooks also from an Audiobookshelf server (with downloads for offline use); podcast and radio search
• Quiet hours and a daily listening time
• Web app for the library, cards, settings and playback
• Built-in player, no extra audio daemon needed
• Plugins for RFID readers, Raspberry Pi hardware (buttons, encoders, LEDs, battery) and more
• Setup steps you can re-run safely, updates from the command line

Installation

On a Raspberry Pi with Raspberry Pi OS (Lite) or another Debian, the installer sets up everything (system packages, the service, the Samba share and more, asking before each step):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ladidadida/lauschkiste/main/install.sh | bash

Only the Python package (Python 3.11 or newer, Linux, PortAudio for the sound output). While there are only pre-releases, pip needs --pre:

uv tool install lauschkiste                      # or: pipx install --pip-args=--pre lauschkiste
lauschkiste                                      # start the server, the web app is on http://localhost:5556

This package installs the server (lauschkiste) and the management command lauschctl:

lauschctl setup --check    # what is set up on this machine
lauschctl plugin list      # installed plugins
lauschctl update           # newer version

Packages

Plugins are installed next to this package and switched on in the web app or with lauschctl plugin enable <name>.

Documentation

• Guide (also in German): installation, use, hardware
• For developers: architecture, plugins, development setup

Origin and license

Lauschkiste grew out of Phoniebox, the RFID jukebox started by Micz Flor, and keeps its history. It is not a drop-in replacement: settings and card files of Phoniebox are not compatible. MIT license.