Music Casting Recommendations

[Mikal]

Hey People, just wondering if anyone has any suggestions for Casting Music from my PC using my phone to a speaker

My current setup:
Windows 10 PC (where my music is)
Android Phone (using like a remote control)
Wonderboom (bluetooth speaker)
also have a Google Home hub

I'm wondering if there are any good apps (Free or paid) that I could use to cast from my PC to my speaker (bonus if it can cast to Google Home Hub) using my phone

Previously I used Emit but the program was on my old Win7 image which doesn't work anymore and can't find the app on the Google Play store anymore
Obviously the simpler the better but if it works well then I'm willing to tinker

[Mikal]

Anybody have any suggestions?

[funnybell]

I've never casted music with a 3rd party app like you're suggesting, but could you connect your PC to the bluetooth speaker and then use a remote desktop app on your phone to control your computer?

[Mikal]

That's kind of what im doing now but wanting to have a little better of a setup

[funnybell]

Ah okay. Sorry I couldn't be of more help! ^^;

Edit: Actually Mikal, I will say that with Spotify, you can cast from your PC to your speaker, and then you can remote control your spotify from your phone. Your phone and PC just have to be on the same wifi/spotify account. If your music is not on spotify you can still import mp3s, wavs or whatever into your "Local Files" on spotify. If you already knew about this then I'll keep thinkin!

[Mario2302]

Mikal: I use a similar setup but only for casting from spotify. I have a premium subscription and just cast my playlists with the music that's available on spotify but you can also add your own music to spotify if i recall correctly so that could be a solution perhaps?

[Mikal]

Thanks, I do use Spotify for general music but haven't looked into adding local files. I don't have premium and don't want to have to upload 100GB+ of music onto the account but I'll take a look to see if it works with a basic account

[Mario2302]

Thanks, I do use Spotify for general music but haven't looked into adding local files. I don't have premium and don't want to have to upload 100GB+ of music onto the account but I'll take a look to see if it works with a basic account

you shouldn't have to upload it to the account. it's basically telling spotify on your pc where the source folder of your music is (or multiple if you have them spread out in different locations).
You should have a toggle in settings for using spotify for local/offline music and if you toggle that too on you should get the option to select the source folder(s).

if you want screenshots just let me know and i can provide them when i get home from work.

[Mikal]

you shouldn't have to upload it to the account. it's basically telling spotify on your pc where the source folder of your music is (or multiple if you have them spread out in different locations).
You should have a toggle in settings for using spotify for local/offline music and if you toggle that too on you should get the option to select the source folder(s).

if you want screenshots just let me know and i can provide them when i get home from work.

Yeah if you wouldn't mind. I tried fiddling around with it and only managed to play my local files on my computer through the spotify app. Couldnt even cast from there as the casting devices all listed as "Unavailable to control"

[funnybell]

Ok so I just tried it out and Google Home's a no go. Spotify does not like playing local files to a google home lol.
But! Since you have local files working on your PC, you should be able to play on "This Computer" and switch your audio device (on windows, not spotify) to the bluetooth speaker. And then you can still control spotify from your phone. At least, that's what's working for me.
[Only registered and activated users can see links]

[Mikal]

Thanks for looking into it for me
From what I've been reading you'll need to have a premium account to be able to use your phone to connect to your PC anyway

[Mario2302]

That's a bummer mikal, any luck so far finding a different solution? I'll try to look into it more tomorrow if I have some time.

[Mikal]

I did find a solution that I'll use for now which is setting up a Plex media server.
It's normally used for videos and the like but can also be used for music.
My only gripe with it so far is that the metadata for the files doesn't import well so every artist is listed as "Various Artists" and it pick a random Album name and applies it to all the files on that particular folder, which isn't a huge deal but quite annoying for me as I have to manually change this (I'll be honest it annoys me more than I let on)
I'll look for other options as well but this works for now

For anyone also interested in doing this, here is the guide I used:
Link to setting up Plex Media Server ([Only registered and activated users can see links])