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Not long after I made the switch to Android Google announced the Chromecast Audio, a cheap little device that plugs into speakers you already own and gives you the ability to stream music from your phone or browser.  As they also include synchronising of the speakers so you can cast to multiple rooms I figured I’d give them a go.  I bought one for my living room and one to plug into a portable set of speakers that I can move around easily. The other benefit is that as it’s all controlled from my phone I can use the music app on my Pebble to change tracks and pause it without getting my phone out of my pocket or while it’s left on charge.  Daft, but fun noneless!

The only problem is that though the portable speakers have an internal battery and charge from USB, they don’t have a USB output which would have made them an ideal match.  I did try hacking in a USB cable to the voltage regultor inside the speakers but that resulted in a lot of noise and hiss on the line and I couldn’t quite get to the bottom of why.  At some point I’d quite like to make a set of portable speakers to my spec so figured I’d cut my losses and find a middle ground.

POC hack to see if the voltage regultator could power the speaker and Chromecast at the same time.  It could but not without a lot of noise.
POC hack to see if the voltage regultator could power the speaker and Chromecast at the same time. It could but not without a lot of noise.

This is the portable speaker in question, an ADX Fusion bluetooth speaker that also has an AUX input, to keep it topped up and to power the Chromecast I needed two USB cables which was a bit more of a faff than I can be bothered with.  Time to break out the soldering iron and make a cable.

I wanted to have the Chromecast almost inline with the USB cable so I plugged them in together and cut the two USB cables at the same point.  I then spliced them together and strengthened them with a bit of shrinkwrap and some electrical tape.  I also cable tied the two output cables together for even more strength and finally cable tied the headphone cable together too to tidy things up.

A simple hack to get me going again but makes the speaker a bit more convenient.