Bose speaker hack (companion 5) to turn on/off automatically
I have on of these Bose companion 5 speakers. The problem with it is when you don't use it actively it turns off to save energy, next time when you want to use it you should press the button on the control pod to activate it. This is a problem when you use the aux cable as input as a standalone speaker. Solution was not the easiest but it's a quick hack.
I designed a system where when an audio detected from the aux input , it Bose speakers turn on automatically to green.
Here is how it goes:
Tested the pins of the control pod, looks like there are different voltages supplied to the control pod.
It all ends up here because I couldn't find how the audio transmitted to the main device.I had to find a way to open this:
There were 2 screws at the back.
It turns out it uses the same screws apple uses T5
When I opened it the top came off
You need to unscrew these as well, and you have to cut the wheel, (you can glue it back together when finished)
This is the circuit that I used, you can search aud1c on google to buy I bought it for 4$ on aliexpress.
Basically you supply voltage from VCC , connect AVin to audio signal , GND to ground and when it detects audio signal from AVin it provides voltage to Vo.
Now I had to find the voltage, ground and audio signal in the pod.This is the 3 volts I used for VCC.
This 6V when shorted with Ground , speakers turn on or off. like a switch.
Therefore we will use a transistor with the circuit. So when we have audio signal , transistor will short the 6V with GND.
This is the transistor that I used, any should do.
Voltage was too much for the transistor that I used so I used 47K resistor.
This is the prototype, I used 6V , 3V , GND , and AUDIO from the locations that I showed in the pictures from the control pod.
As soon as It worked OK, I had to make it smaller so
This is the final part I ended up with, now I need to fit this into control pod.
One last check before putting everything together.
Glueing back the pod.
And it is working :
Let me know if this helps you in the comments sections and if you may have any suggestions...
Comments
The side effect is it can never be turned off again and the earphone output is not working now. But, it's simple and requires no parts.