ESPHome iPod Controller

September 13, 2023

Video

Intro

I’ve been sitting on this project for a while. I had the basic commands (play / pause / next / previous / vol + / vol - ) complete for about 3 years. I had previously purchased the ipod breakout board in 2018 😅

With the help of some folks on Discord, I was finally able to push this project over the finish line. I had a major breakthrough with the serial commands.

There were a lot of legacy resources to sift through on the Wayback Machine along the way. A lot of these resources from iPod Linux, Make Magazine, and the arduino forums were from 2004 - 2011 – most of these websites aren’t functional anymore due to redesigns.

I had also made the ESPHome based iPod Dock IR Remote. It’s useful but different. With this you can scroll through playlists and in theory automate selecting different playlists. I’m sure someone will think of something cool!

Hardware:

ESP32
iPod 30 pin breakout board connector
500k ohm resistor

Please note: while doing the research a while ago, I learned that using an ESP32 instead of ESP8266 was necessary due to the ESP32 being better at issuing the serial commands at a higher baud rate. I haven’t tried it since, let me know if you find otherwise.

ipod 30 pin breakout board

Connecting it up:

ESP32	connection	iPod 30 pin Breakout Board
Ground	jumper wire	Pin 15
RX2 [GPIO16]	jumper wire	Pin 10
TX2 [GPIO17]	jumper wire	Pin 13
x	500k ohm Resistor	Pin 11 to Pin 21 with resistor in between

Between Pin 11 and Pin 21 on the iPod breakout board, you need to add one 500k ohm resistor. I used two 250k ohm resistors in a series since it was hard to find one 500k ohm resistor.

Baud Rate:

19200

ESPHome YAML:


esphome:
  name: ipod_dock
  platform: ESP32
  board: esp32doit-devkit-v1

wifi:
  ssid: 'name'
  password: 'password'

api:

# Enable logging
logger:

ota:

uart:
  tx_pin: GPIO17
  rx_pin: GPIO16
  baud_rate: 19200

switch:

  - platform: uart
    name: "iPod Play/Pause Toggle"
    data: [0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x00, 0x01, 0x02, 0xFA, 0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x02, 0x00, 0x01, 0xFA, 0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x02, 0x00, 0x00, 0xFB] # from https://git.cbps.xyz/yuno/Open_Dock/src/branch/wifi-control/main.py

  - platform: uart
    name: "iPod Volume Up"
    data: [0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x00, 0x01, 0x02, 0xFA, 0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x02, 0x00, 0x02, 0xF9, 0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x02, 0x00, 0x00, 0xFB] # from https://git.cbps.xyz/yuno/Open_Dock/src/branch/master/opendock.py

  - platform: uart
    name: "iPod Volume Down"
    data: [0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x00, 0x01, 0x02, 0xFA, 0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x02, 0x00, 0x04, 0xF7, 0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x02, 0x00, 0x00, 0xFB] # from https://git.cbps.xyz/yuno/Open_Dock/src/branch/master/opendock.py

  - platform: uart
    name: "iPod Next Track"
    data: [0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x00, 0x01, 0x02, 0xFA, 0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x02, 0x00, 0x08, 0xF3, 0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x02, 0x00, 0x00, 0xFB] # from https://git.cbps.xyz/yuno/Open_Dock/src/branch/master/opendock.py

  - platform: uart
    name: "iPod Prev Track"
    data: [0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x00, 0x01, 0x02, 0xFA, 0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x02, 0x00, 0x10, 0xEB, 0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x02, 0x00, 0x00, 0xFB] # from https://git.cbps.xyz/yuno/Open_Dock/src/branch/master/opendock.py

#### not working now
  - platform: uart
    name: "iPod - Turn Off"
    data: [0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x00, 0x01, 0x02, 0xFA, 0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x02, 0x00, 0x02, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x04, 0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x02, 0x00, 0x00, 0xFB]

#### not working now
  - platform: uart
    name: "iPod - Turn On"
    data: [0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x00, 0x01, 0x02, 0xFA, 0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x02, 0x00, 0x02, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x08, 0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x02, 0x00, 0x00, 0xFB]

# iPod Navigation Control
  - platform: uart
    name: "iPod Menu Button"
    data: [0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x00, 0x01, 0x02, 0xFA, 0xFF, 0x55, 0x5, 0x02, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x40, 0xB9, 0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x02, 0x00, 0x00, 0xFB]

  - platform: uart
    name: "iPod Select Button"
    data: [0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x00, 0x01, 0x02, 0xFA, 0xFF, 0x55, 0x5, 0x02, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x80, 0x79, 0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x02, 0x00, 0x00, 0xFB]

  - platform: uart
    name: "iPod Scroll Up"
    data: [0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x00, 0x01, 0x02, 0xFA, 0xFF, 0x55, 0x6, 0x02, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x01, 0xF7, 0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x02, 0x00, 0x00, 0xFB]

  - platform: uart
    name: "iPod Scroll Down"
    data: [0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x00, 0x01, 0x02, 0xFA, 0xFF, 0x55, 0x6, 0x02, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x02, 0xF6, 0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x02, 0x00, 0x00, 0xFB]

## voice recording ... only supported on certain iPods
  - platform: uart
    name: "iPod Voice Record 1"
    data: [0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x00, 0x01, 0x01, 0xFB]

  - platform: uart
    name: "iPod Voice Record 2"
    data: [0xFF, 0x55, 0x03, 0x00, 0x01, 0x01, 0xFB]

Next Steps:

Design and 3D print a dock
add a camera on top of it to view the screen remotely
design a great Home Assistant dashboard interface
There is an Advanced iPod Remote – like when you plug an iPod into a car and you can control it from a car stereo headunit. That is an interesting next step because you can pull all the data from the device to see what playlists are available or the currently playing song and pass the data into Home Assistant. It’d be cool to see this as a Media Player source in HA.
- Also In theory you could recreate the iPod interface in a web interface.