ESP8266 Spotify Karaoke
Breadboarded Spotify karaoke device with NodeMCU shows lyrics on small LCD display.
Dolen Le had a spare 20x4 character LCD available, and wanted to make use of it. He combined it with a clone NodeMCU ESP8266 module via a breadboard, and after a bit of coding work to interface the setup with the Spotify API and Musicxmatch, he was able to put together something akin to rudimentary karaoke machine.
It’s quite an approachable project, given there are really only two main components: the NodeMCU and the 20x4 character display, plus a few hookup wires, a breadboard, and a USB cable/power supply. It’s also a testament to just how much information is available if you know where to look, and how to work with it.
On the other hand, Le notes that live lyrics have been available on Spotify for some time, and that you could simply read them off of your phone. This project is therefore perhaps most interesting as a technology demonstrator, showing how someone (maybe you) could take this code and hardware, and adapt it to a larger LED matrix-type display. Everyone in a room could then see the lyrics playing in a nice semi-retro style.
This mini karaoke machine, which can be seen in action below, does a good job of tracking the song playing, even when its skipped around. It also displays the song title before getting into the lyrics themselves... You know, so you can get hyped up for your favorite Rick Astley or Rob Van Winkle song that's getting started.