An ESPHome-based Media Player for Home Assistant, elegantly housed in a magic cube design with Hi-Fi audio output, small screen and NFC interaction.
The birth of ha-music-cube wasn't a single event, but rather a fascinating evolution of "functional stacking" and design breakthroughs.
In the beginning, my goal was pure and simple: use an ESP32-S3-DevkitC-1 paired with a PCM5102A DAC to build a high-quality Media Player.
Before diving into the main build, I prototyped several standalone NFC Tag Readers. This sparked a "Eureka" moment: If I'm already using NFC tags to trigger music, why not integrate the reader directly into the media player? Thus, the PN532 module joined the project, enabling physical, tactile interaction for music playback.
Music is great, but seeing the album art makes it better. It will be cool to add a screen, isn't it? While searching for display modules, I stumbled upon a "Holo Cube" project online. The industrial beauty of it was mesmerizing. After comparing dimensions, I found that a 1.3-inch TFT color screen paired with a 25.4mm Beam Splitter Cube (Prism) was a match made in perfectly aligned dimensions for a holographic-like effect.
As the module count grew, I realized that the ESP32-S3's onboard regulator could no longer handle the load. To ensure system stability and audio purity, I introduced a dedicated Power Distribution Board, establishing a rigorous Star-Grounding architecture for all modules.
Finally, drawing from my Tag Reader experience, I added a small Active Buzzer for haptic/audio feedback (like successful card scans), while the onboard LED of the ESP32 was repurposed as a status indicator.
The most exciting part was the enclosure design. As the internal components multiplied, the case size began to balloon. Suddenly, I had a flash of inspiration: the prism is a cube, so why not make the entire device a 3x3x3 Cube?
By using 25.4mm (the prism's edge length) as the unit size for each "block," the resulting magic cube dimensions perfectly accommodated all modules. It was a mathematical and aesthetic win.
Note: This project is currently in the prototype/WIP stage. More technical documentation, schematics, and implementation details will be updated as I successfully finalize the assembly.