Redditor OracleDude33 built this wooden internet kitchen radio with an impossibly smooth finish. Sadly for us, details are scant, so there’s no insight into where OracleDude33 picked up their impressive woodworking skills.

How does it work?

A Raspberry Pi 4 Model B is the electronic heart inside the carved wooden chassis. It’s wearing a Raspberry Pi DigiAMP+ audio HAT, allowing for a direct connection to the speakers, which were liberated from a retired SiriusXM TTR1 radio. Music comes courtesy of moOde audio software and a little code to log into the maker’s SiriusXM account. The subtle, old-timey volume knob twists to turn the music up and down and is also a push button to turn the device off; OracleDude33 sourced it from the aptly named Antique Electronic Supply. The main user interface happens on a 7″ Raspberry Pi Touch Display. This shows information like song title and length, as well as playlist names and line-ups.

Extra kitchen functionality

Redditor Ok-Dress-556 made the fair point that, with a screen that big, it seems a shame to limit it to displaying only what a regular digital radio would: “Looks great, but I am still missing a way to display a recipe.”

A Pi 4 can certainly handle looking up the odd Nigella, so that’s a possibility for developing this project. Or perhaps you could hook it up with a local Google Assistant so you can shout kitchen questions like “how long does it take to boil the perfect egg?” (The answer is four minutes.)

Touchscreens and cooking hands don’t mix

I would get very tired, very quickly, of having to degrease my dirty kitchen hands in order to fiddle with the touchscreen, though, so despite Alexa not being anywhere near as pretty as this woodworked beauty, I think I’ll stick with her as my aural kitchen companion for now. I definitely wouldn’t mind hiding it inside a retro-looking radio like this one though. Always striving for fashion and function.

Who knows — perhaps the radio already has this extra functionality built in and the maker is just being modest about the true genius of this build. Let’s pose the question on their original project post.