BluAS, shuffle your albums with BluOS

Introduction
BluAS stands for BluOS Album Shuffle and is an Android app controller that allows you to control your BluOS player at home. Its main function is to select and play complete albums randomly selected from your BluOS library (on your NAS).

With the autoplay feature albums (or tracks) can repeatly be played from your library.

With the listplay feature a playlist with randomly selected albums (or tracks) from your library can be created and played (and saved by you).

BluAS is particularly interesting for users with (very) large music collections without having to create playlists in advance!

In addition to playing albums randomly, BluAS can also be used for the play control of other streaming services, like Spotify. BluAS offers a simple and minimalist interface (for mobile devices and tablets). You can also select quickly any album using the Artist filter (see below).

The official BluOS Controller mobile app doesn't offer such an "album shuffle" function, while users with large music collections have wanted this for a long time (Look at these cases from January 2020, April 2022 and October 2023 ). The BluAS Android app uses the publicly available API, which you can find here. The initial implementation was developed as a Python script and a more interactive webpage version, both are still available upon request.

How to install
You can download the latest version of the app (v1.5) from my download page (or click here) and install it on your Android device (Android 8+). View the release history (see below).

To communicate with your BluOS player (via WiFi), a number of technical parameters must match your local situation (via the app's technical settings). These technical parameters are set when BluAS starts (when these values are still empty). However, you can also set them manually:

• IP address of your BluOS player within your local network (Check Diagnostic info of your Controller app)
• Portno to which the API of your BluOS-player listens to (default 11000)
• Service name of your music library on your NAS (default LocalMusic)

PhD Software offers a free version and a licensed version for personal and non-commercial use. You can request a license via email. A personal license costs a one-time fee of € 49 (to be paid via Paypal.).

The free version limits the number of artists (max. 250), the number of artists per genre (max. 25), the number of albums per artist (max. 5) and the number of favorite or fresh albums (max. 5). Furthermore, different play modes like the Autoplay, Listplay and Track mode are not supported, including the selection of specific albums of the filtered artist, favorites or fresh ones.

The app does not share any data and does not store personal data.

How it works
First, an artist is randomly selected, so that every artist on your NAS has an equal chance. Second, an album is randomly selected and played. BluAS uses an own index containing all your available artists and its genre. This allows a quick selection of the albums!

To control album playback (and visualize album playback durations with progress bars), BluAS does not support simultaneous control of other controllers (such as the BluOS controller app). When BluAS takes control by selecting and playing an album, BluAS becomes standby, the Artist button is highlighted.

If BluAS detects another app being used, it will lose its standby status, the album progress bar disappears, any autoplay will not continue, and... the Artist button is again dimmed.

Button layout overview
Artist	Shuffle	Skip	Play	Vol. up
Album	Repeat	Back	Info	Vol. dw
Long-press functions Artist button: create index for BluAS from BluOS Album button: play current album if in track mode Info button: show app info (version & notes) Vol. up button: set current artist as filter

How to use
When you start the player for the first time and have set the correct technical parameters (by BluAS or manually), you can check the status of your BluOS device with the Info button. If everything looks allright, you can create your BluAS index: long-press the Artist button, click ok and wait for BluAS to finish creating the index (watch its progress bar).

Clicking the Artist button randomly selects a new artist, and clicking the Album button randomly selects another album by the previously selected artist. Now that BluAS is in standby mode, the album's tracklist can be displayed using the Info button.

Additionally, the combination of the Shuffle button and Repeat button determines the Autoplay mode, when BluAS continues with playing another album after the selected album has finished playing.

• Shuffle only, player will play random album of a random artist
• Shuffle+Repeat, player will play random album of the current artist
• Repeat only, player will replay current album of the current artist

The Autoplay mode requires the app to remain active in the background. It starts a so-called foreground activity (in the status bar) and requires unrestricted battery usage for the app (Android 12+).

Although BluAS is an album controller, it offers with the Track mode the feature to autoplay just one track from a selected album, chosen at random, of course. So BluAS can also stand for BluOS All -you can- Shuffle! If a track from the current album appeals to you, you can stop the Track mode and play the entire album by long-pressing the Album button.

The autoplay feature is an unique way to randomly play music from your library. You can keep playing it endlessly if you want (as long as BluAS remains connected to your local network).

Play modes
BluAS currently offers 5 play modes (available via the Settings-menu). The default mode plays only the selected album or track and does not move to a next one. The Autoplay mode, however, continues playing with a random album (or track) by another random or current artist. You can also repeat the current album or track. The Autoplay mode is set by default but can be altered using the Shuffle and Repeat buttons.

The Listplay mode (from version 1.5) cannot be changed while the app is active; you must restart the app after switching to this mode. Listplay mode creates a playlist of random albums or tracks, selected based on genre or artist. You can start this mode with the first button (the 'Artist' button has been replaced)!

The advantage of Listplay mode (compared to Autoplay mode) is that the app does not need to run continuously (so no foreground activity and standby control are needed), disadvantages may be the lack of surprise and its limited duration. The duration of a playlist created with the Listplay mode depends on the number of albums or tracks, which is maximized by BluAS (currently 3 albums or 10 tracks). The Listplay mode currently does not support favorites, recently played albums, or album filters, but it enables the Shuffle and Repeat buttons to work like genuine BluOS functions.

Filters
To refine the random selection of albums, two filters are available.

In the first field (top left above the album cover), you can select a genre. You can also exclude a genre by prefixing it with a minus character. By entering any value, a popup appears with the available genres and its number of artists (if the Filter info setting is enabled). By entering an empty value (or clearing the previous value), all genres will be reselected.

You can also enter 'fv' as pseudo-genre to play at random the albums selected by you as favorite (from v1.1) or enter 'fr' as pseudo-genre to play at random the latest or fresh albums added to your library, which size you can set as setting (from v1.3). A special feature also allows you to randomly select and play your favorite tracks. To enable this, you must also enter 'fv' as the pseudo-genre and enable both the Track mode and the Favorite track mode setting (from v1.4).

In the second field (to the right of the first field), you can select an artist from whom you want to play random albums. You can search for parts of an artist name. To select specific artist names, you may prefix (or postfix) your search text with a dot. Example: enter '.Yes' to find artist Yes or 'Yes' to find f.i. 'Bright Eyes'. If albums of an artist are found, an optional popup may appear with a list of the available albums of the artist.

You can also filter albums of a prefered artist by entering a matching value in the first genre field prefixed with a '?'. Example: enter '?sym' in the first field and 'beethoven' in the second field.

Last but not least, you can also select a specific album by entering its number from the displayed list of albums.

Important to know
The index created by and within BluAS is based on BluOS indexing results. If you've added a new artist, be sure to reindex your music library using the BluOS app first. It's also important to note that BluAS uses an artist-centric approach. While an artist can belong to multiple genres, BluAS can only select them based on one genre.

BluAS can also display the album's year, if it's included in the album's file path on your network folder.

BluAS plays a randomly selected album by default without any confirmation, which can be changed via the Settings-menu. The different play modes can also be enabled through the Settings-menu. You can use the app in light or dark mode through the Settings-menu (with some more features).

Occasional communication errors may occur with your BluOS device (such as timeouts due to overload or unexpected changes in its IP address). You can determine the actual technical cause of this - if it is persistent - by enabling the Debug mode.

BluOS compatibility
The app is at least compatible with BluOS firmware version 4.10.13 (July 2025). Since there is no way to revert to previous BluOS firmware versions, there is a small risk that upgrades may cause compatibility issues. Therefore, PhD Software greatly appreciates all comments and feedback when running BluAS on other BluOS versions.

License, custom version or support?
For a license, a custom version, any special requests or suggestions, please send an email to info@phdsoftware.nl.

Release history
The first final version was created after a period of many step-by-step improvements. New improvements are added via update versions. I am currently working on using a short video clip instead of the static album cover (a new visual setting). If the player pauses, the video naturally pauses as well. It looks very nice, so keep an eye out! In the mean time, feel free to send me any findings you would like to see improved.

BluAS examples (click for hi-res)

BluAS playing example (click for mp4)