Gordon Payne's "Simple" Station Streamer Is a Compact, 10-Station Espressif ESP32 Wi-Fi Radio Box

Teacher and maker Gordon Payne has designed a "simple" internet radio streamer powered by an Espressif ESP32 microcontroller module and housed in a 3D-printed case — delivering a streamlined system that nevertheless supports the storage and selection of up to 10 favorite stations.

"I wanted to build a simple streaming radio 'receiver' for my workbench so I can listen to radio stations while working on projects," Payne explains. "It's substantially less complicated than the clock radio project I also designed. This is a simple streamer. No scrolling station, artist, [or] song metadata here. If you want to see this kind of extra information, you're better off choosing another [project]."

The heart of the build is an Espressif ESP32-WROOM-32 microcontroller module, which handles both the user interface and the reception of the chosen radio stream — delivered over the module's integrated Wi-Fi radio — with decoding farmed off to a VS1053 MP3 codec. This is linked to a four-segment LED display that offers a way to differentiate between different stations, and a rotary encoder for choosing which of 10 favorites is currently playing.

A major upgrade to Payne's earlier designs is the use of a web-based configuration system, meaning it's not necessary to hard-code credentials and station URLs in the firmware before uploading it to the microcontroller. Wi-Fi credentials, meanwhile, are managed using a hot-spot-based Wi-Fi manager library.

The project is documented in full, with source code and STL files for the housing, on Instructables.