Maybe a pi that will run desktop better than a zero with some music services set up as web apps? You can get linux mints webapps using pi-apps. I have a touchscreen setup with volumio, but im pretty sure volumio wont connect to a speaker through bluetooth, raspberry pi or other desktop os' will though. My hunch says that ubuntu might be more likely to work with an external play/pause control - play and pause keys dont work with chromium or firefox in raspi os, but will with vlc and the like, I havent been able to figure out what causes this but I think its somewhere in the os as the browser flags all seem to be set up right
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Ok, good advice.. I'll look at the newest full size pi. I have a 10 yr old mini PC in a closet somewhere. Maybe I'll pull that out, and do some testing before I get the pi. Thanks for responding.
So it’s a whacky idea but hear me out!
Theres people in the community working on using a Pi5 and the pi touch screen 2 to make things like apple car play work: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2024/home-assistant-and-carplay-pi-touch-display-2
This could then give you a touch screen interface to Apple Music or Spotify etc etc. Your device itself would always be connected to the Bluetooth but your phone would connect to and from the pi hopefully not announcing its connection status.
It also appears you can do this with Android too: https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/diy-in-car-entertainment-display/
Sounds interesting. Maybe perfect for my use case. I'll look into it today. Thanks for taking the time to mention it.