Introduction

Intel Edison has onboard Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. This is one of my favorite IoT boards as it never disappoints me. Recently I wanted to play some sound with Edison in one of my projects so I thought to give its Bluetooth functionality a try and it was easier than I thought. In this project, I am going to show you how we can play an audio file with Edison by connecting it to Bluetooth speakers.
Requirements
Connections
Connect your Edison to a PC and also establish a serial communication. As we are connecting through Bluetooth our Edison will work in Device Mode. If you are using a USB sound card and headsets you need to switch it to host mode, in that case this article won’t be much help to you.
Setup
Connect to Edison with Putty
Enter username and Password. The default username is root with no password.
PuTTY Configuration
Figure 1: PuTTY Configuration
Make sure your Bluetooth speakers are turned on. Now type these commands,
  1. root@edison:~# rfkill unblock bluetooth
  2. root@edison:~# bluetoothctl
Unblock bluetooth
Figure 2: Unblock Bluetooth
You will enter into Bluetooth control mode. Scan the Bluetooth devices:
[bluetooth] scan on,
Scan Bluetooth devices.
Figure 3: Scan Bluetooth devices.
You will see your device listed. Find your device and Pair it.
[bluetooth] pair 30:21:85:A1:46:3D
Sometimes the device does not automatically connect so you need to run another command to connect it.
[bluetooth] connect 30:21:85:A1:46:3D
Command to connect
Figure 4: Command to connect
Exit the Bluetooth Manager.
[bluetooth] quit
Now let us verify that our device is recognized in pulse audio as a sink device and if everything goes fine you will see it listed as bluez_sink.
pactl list sinks
Configure the default sink to use pulse audio server with the following command, replacing with the details of your device,
Configure the default sink
Figure 5: Configure the default sink
pactl set-default-sink bluez_sink.30_21_85_A1_46_3D
Replacing with the details of your device
Figure 6: Replacing with the details of your device
Now we are almost done. Let us run the audio file using gStreamer. I have already copied an audio file to my Edison using FileZilla.
Edison using FileZilla
Figure 7: Edison using FileZilla
Run this command and also replace the file name and location.
gst-launch-1.0filesrc location= /home/root/Songs/SanamRe.wav ! wavparse !pulsesink
Run command
Figure 8: Run command
If everything goes fine you will notice a song playing via your Bluetooth speakers. Enjoy your new music player!
Onboard Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
Figure 9: Onboard Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
References
Here are few links on everything you want to know about Edison Bluetooth or Audio.
Read more articles on Internet of Things: