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Spewed on: June 13, 2010
One thing I gave up when I abandoned my previous homespun network music system for the Squeezebox was nice visuals depicting what’s currently playing. These days, you can get yourself a Squeezebox Touch to satisfy your lust for eye candy, but our old-fashioned Squeezebox is still plugging along just fine; no need to replace it. I’ve also done a lot of custom scripting for our Squeezebox that necessitates I stick with an older device (because of its firmware). I’m not motivated to get all the custom stuff working on a newer Squeezebox. Still, having some visuals to stare at in addition to the analog VU meters would be nice …
The Idea
A year or so ago, it occurred to me that I might be able to use a digital photo frame to display Squeezebox visuals. I had no idea how to do it at the time, but they are little LCD monitors, after all. I started looking around at frames. I knew one prerequisite was going to be network connectivity. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. There weren’t many networkable frames available at the time. The few I found were almost universally both over-priced and receiving of decidedly underwhelming user reviews. I wasn’t opposed to parting with a few dollars, but it felt silly to spend more than I spent on the Squeezebox itself just to display cover art. Furthermore, most of the digital frames I looked at were butt-ugly. I wasn’t keen on planting an ugly frame next to the Squeezebox.
A Suitable Frame
I had pretty much shelved the project, when I stumbled across an inexpensive and not terribly ugly Pandigital frame at Costco that noted Wi-Fi-capability on the box. The frame itself was about $60.00. Before I bought it, I researched it a bit. It turned out in order to enable Wi-Fi, a separate Pandigital-branded Wi-Fi USB adapter was required. The adapter was less than $25.00, but the reviews from those who had attempted to use it were mixed. The cost of the frame and adapter together, however, were within my “oh, heck, why not” threshold, so I bought them both. This particular frame, the PAN7000DW, came with an attachable plain black wood frame and a couple of mattes. I left them in the box and went with the naked black plastic enclosure that houses the guts of the device. It would have matched the Squeezebox a little better if it was glossy black, but the frame’s enclosure is understated enough and it somewhat complements, or at least doesn’t overly detract from the Squeezebox. |
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