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Running HiveMind Player on ArkOS with the R36S

JarbasAl

JarbasAl

OVOS Contributor

Running HiveMind Player on ArkOS with the R36S

Running HiveMind Player on ArkOS with the R36S

The R36S handheld from AliExpress is usually marketed as a retro gaming device, but with a bit of tinkering it can also become a HiveMind-powered audio player, fully integrated with Home Assistant and Music Assistant 🎶.

This guide shows how I set up the hivemind-player on ArkOS and turned my device into a smart media endpoint.

R36Ultra device

Why HiveMind Player?

HiveMind Player lets you run the Open Voice OS (OVOS) audio stack as a service. Once configured, your R36S:

  • Appears as a media player in Home Assistant 🏡
  • Works seamlessly with Music Assistant 🎵
  • Uses OpenVoiceOS for playback control (play, pause, next, etc.)
  • Can handle TTS and system volume if you install the right plugins

See the HiveMind Media Player README for full technical details.

Step 1: Flash ArkOS

I used arkos4clone to install ArkOS on my R36 Ultra.

⚠️ Compatibility and initial steps may vary across clone devices, since there are many hardware variations. This guide applies to ArkOS-based firmware but assumes your handheld is already fully functional before starting.

👉 Always follow the specific instructions from your image provider, and check handhelds.wiki for the latest community documentation.

Once ArkOS is up:

  • Connect to WiFi from the device menu
  • Enable Remote Services
  • SSH into the device from a computer

neofetch in ArkOS

Step 2: Install uv

We’ll use uv for managing Python environments and dependencies:

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

Create a Python 3.10 virtual environment:

uv venv --python 3.10

Step 3: Install System Packages

ArkOS strips out many development headers, so we need to reinstall them.

Without these, I ran into some confusing build errors when trying to install plugins for volume control, including:

fatal error: limits.h: No such file or directory
fatal error: linux/limits.h: No such file or directory
fatal error: alsa/asoundlib.h: No such file or directory

These were resolved by reinstalling the right dev packages:

sudo apt install build-essential libffi-dev libssl-dev gcc libc6-dev
sudo apt install --reinstall libc6-dev linux-libc-dev libasound2-dev

Then install Python build tools:

uv pip install wheel

Step 4: Install HiveMind Player

Install the player with recommended extras (e.g., VLC, PHAL, OCP, TTS):

uv pip install git+https://github.com/JarbasHiveMind/hivemind-media-player[extras]

Step 5: Configure HiveMind Core

Create a config directory and set up the server.json:

mkdir -p ~/.config/hivemind-core/
nano ~/.config/hivemind-core/server.json

Example minimal configuration:

{
  "agent_protocol": {
    "module": "hivemind-player-agent-plugin",
    "hivemind-player-agent-plugin": {}
  },
  "network_protocol": {
    "hivemind-websocket-plugin": {
      "host": "0.0.0.0",
      "port": 5678
    },
    "hivemind-http-plugin": {
      "host": "0.0.0.0",
      "port": 5679
    }
  }
}

Step 6: Extra Plugins

You may want to install PHAL plugins for platform and hardware integration, or TTS plugins to use different voices

Currently the most useful is the ALSA plugin for system volume control:

uv pip install ovos-tts-plugin-piper ovos-phal-plugin-alsa ovos-PHAL-plugin-system

This makes volume adjustable via HiveMind / Home Assistant.

👉 PHAL is optional. Right now it’s only needed for volume control - and, as shown above, it required a lot of dev headers just to build. In the future, dedicated plugins may appear, for example to control the joystick LEDs on the R36 Ultra.

Step 7: Configure ovos-audio

HiveMind Player uses the OVOS audio stack for playback and TTS. The configuration lives in:

~/.config/mycroft/mycroft.conf

The main change required on ArkOS is adjusting the WAV playback command:

  • By default, mycroft.conf uses paplay
  • On ArkOS, this needs to be switched to aplay in order for TTS to work correctly
{
  "play_wav_cmdline": "aplay %1",
  "play_mp3_cmdline": "mpg123 %1",
  "play_ogg_cmdline": "ogg123 -q %1",

  "tts": {
    "module": "ovos-tts-plugin-piper",
    "ovos-tts-plugin-piper": {"voice": "alan-low"}
  },

  "Audio": {
    "backends": {
      "vlc": {
        "type": "vlc",
        "active": true,
        "initial_volume": 100,
        "low_volume": 50
      }
    }
  },

  "PHAL": {
    "ovos-PHAL-plugin-alsa": {
      "default_volume": 90
    },
    "ovos-PHAL-plugin-system": {
      "core_service": "hivemind-player.service",
      "ssh_service": "ssh.service",
      "sudo": true
    }
  }
}
  • play_wav_cmdline → must be changed to aplay %1
  • Audio → VLC is already available in ArkOS and can play nearly all streams you throw at it
  • TTS → Default is ovos-tts-plugin-piper, but you can swap in any OVOS TTS plugin you prefer such as ovos-tts-plugin-server
  • PHAL → system plugin needs to be adjusted in order to use the correct service names

NOTE: in arkOS sudo does not require password, therefore ovos-PHAL-plugin-system should work out of the box

Step 8: Set Up Permissions

HiveMind operates on a deny-all policy by default: every message type must be explicitly allowed for clients.

First, create a client identity:

hivemind-core add-client

This gives you an Access Key and Password.

Next, allow the minimum messages needed for playback and TTS. Replace <NODE_ID> with the client’s Node ID:

# Basic audio / TTS
hivemind-core allow-msg "speak" <NODE_ID>
hivemind-core allow-msg "mycroft.audio.is_alive" <NODE_ID>
hivemind-core allow-msg "mycroft.audio.is_ready" <NODE_ID>
hivemind-core allow-msg "mycroft.audio.speak.status" <NODE_ID>
hivemind-core allow-msg "mycroft.stop" <NODE_ID>

# Common Play (playback control)
hivemind-core allow-msg "ovos.common_play.play" <NODE_ID>
hivemind-core allow-msg "ovos.common_play.pause" <NODE_ID>
hivemind-core allow-msg "ovos.common_play.resume" <NODE_ID>
hivemind-core allow-msg "ovos.common_play.stop" <NODE_ID>
hivemind-core allow-msg "ovos.common_play.next" <NODE_ID>
hivemind-core allow-msg "ovos.common_play.previous" <NODE_ID>
hivemind-core allow-msg "ovos.common_play.player.status" <NODE_ID>
hivemind-core allow-msg "ovos.common_play.track_info" <NODE_ID>

# Optional: volume (PHAL ALSA plugin)
hivemind-core allow-msg "mycroft.volume.get" <NODE_ID>
hivemind-core allow-msg "mycroft.volume.set" <NODE_ID>
hivemind-core allow-msg "mycroft.volume.increase" <NODE_ID>
hivemind-core allow-msg "mycroft.volume.decrease" <NODE_ID>
hivemind-core allow-msg "mycroft.volume.mute" <NODE_ID>
hivemind-core allow-msg "mycroft.volume.unmute" <NODE_ID>

# Optional: SSH, Reboot and Shutdown (PHAL system plugin)
hivemind-core allow-msg "system.ssh.status" <NODE_ID>
hivemind-core allow-msg "system.ssh.enable" <NODE_ID>
hivemind-core allow-msg "system.ssh.disable" <NODE_ID>
hivemind-core allow-msg "system.reboot" <NODE_ID>
hivemind-core allow-msg "system.shutdown" <NODE_ID>

Step 9: Create a System Service

To keep HiveMind Player running in the background, add a systemd user service:

mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user/
nano ~/.config/systemd/user/hivemind-player.service

Paste this:

[Unit]
Description=HiveMind Player
After=network.target

[Service]
WorkingDirectory=/home/ark
ExecStart=/home/ark/.venv/bin/python /home/ark/.venv/bin/hivemind-core listen
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Then enable and start it:

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable hivemind-player.service --now
systemctl --user status hivemind-player.service

Step 10: Optional - Install tailscale for remote access

A problem we have with the R36S is that it changes IP address on every boot and randomizes its MAC address; to work around this we could try to assign a static IP address but since this is a handheld and will often be on the move, why not use a VPN?

tailscale is free and painless to install

curl -fsSL https://tailscale.com/install.sh | sh
sudo systemctl enable tailscaled
sudo tailscale login
sudo systemctl start tailscaled
sudo systemctl status tailscaled

Now we have a static ip address AND we can access the handheld remotely

Step 11: Integrate with Home Assistant

With the hivemind-homeassistant integration installed, your R36 Ultra shows up as a media player inside Home Assistant.

R36 device in Home Assistant

In Home Assistant, the TTS setup also makes the device available as a notify entity, so you can send text notifications and have them spoken on your R36 Ultra:

service: notify.hivemind_player
data:
  message: "Dinner is ready!"

R36 notify in Home Assistant

Combine this with Music Assistant and suddenly your retro handheld doubles as a WiFi speaker you can control from your smart home dashboard.

R36 player in Music Assistant

Wrap-Up

That’s it! My R36 Ultra, originally built for emulation, now runs HiveMind Player on ArkOS and integrates seamlessly with my smart home setup.

  • HiveMind manages the player backend
  • Home Assistant discovers it
  • Music Assistant lets me browse and stream to it
  • ovos-audio makes it flexible for both playback and TTS
  • Optional PHAL plugins give extra control (volume now, LEDs in the future)
  • Permissions ensure only trusted clients can control it

A fun way to repurpose cheap handheld hardware into a smart speaker alternative! 🚀

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JarbasAl

JarbasAl

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