Sendspin: Music Experience Protocol

3 min read Original article ↗

Listen, control and see your music in every room with Sendspin, an open standard for the complete music listening experience.

Sendspin is in public preview. The specification is subject to change.

Sendspin is an open standard by the Open Home Foundation for a synchronized music experience across multiple devices and rooms. It enables speakers, lights, and screens to work together to create a rich and immersive audio environment:

  • Play audio in sync across multiple speakers
  • Offer music control and metadata from tablets or screens
  • Visualize audio playback on connected lights (coming soon)

Try it out today

Sendspin has been implemented in various products and projects to help validate the experience we want to deliver. We're actively working with the Open Home community to test the implementation, get feedback, and help shape the future of the protocol.

To try Sendspin today:

  • Stream music via Sendspin to any receiver using Music Assistant and play the stream simultaneously in browsers and Google Cast-enabled devices.1
  • Play a Sendspin stream on the Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition (or a speaker connected to it via the AUX port)
  • Turn an old phone into a Sendspin receiver with SendspinDroid
  • Turn your Windows computer into a Sendspin receiver using windowsSpin

For nerds:

  • If you want to see what Sendspin is capable off, and are familiar with Python and the command-line, run uvx sendspin serve --demo (requires uv)
  • Show album art and control your music from ESPHome using this example configuration
  • Play a Sendspin stream from the command-line receiver using sendspin-cli
  • Run a command-line server or receiver powered by sendspin-go

If you have any feedback, please stop by at the #sendspin-beta-testing channel on the Music Assistant Discord.

1 Enable experimental Sendspin mode in settings for each Cast player in Music Assistant.

Adopted by the following products and projects

Why (yet another) new protocol?

Major audio-playback standards like AirPlay and Cast are closed.

We believe users should control their devices, their data, and their music. Open standards are essential to that vision. Existing protocols for synchronized audio experiences are proprietary and closed. This makes it impossible to have an open ecosystem of interoperable solutions that unleashes the creativity of the community.

We also believe that existing standards are incomplete. They focus solely on audio streaming, while the complete music experience includes per-speaker DSP, controlling playback and visualizing the music. Sendspin aims to fill that gap.

Commercial usage

Sendspin is available for commercial usage. For licensing information and certification, contact us.

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