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

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 (see here). 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 (v0.99k) from my download page and install it on your Android device (Android 8+). View the release history at the bottom of this page.

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 (for a small fee). The free version limits the number of artists (max. 250), the number of artists per genre (max. 25) and the number of albums per artist (max. 5). Furthermore, autoplay and track mode are not supported. The app does not share any data without your permission 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 allow 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 turns to green.

If BluAS detects another app being used, it will lose its standby status, the album progress bar disappear, any autoplay will not continue, and... the Artist button turns to red.

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 track list of current album 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. Long-pressing the Info button displays the tracklist of the album currently playing on BluAS (not enabled if BluAS is not standby).

Additionally, the combination of the Shuffle button and Repeat button determines the autoplay mode, when BluAS continues with playing another album after an 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).

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

In the first field (top left), 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 avaliable 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.

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 by parts of a genre or artist name. But 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 appears with the available albums of the artist.

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

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 in the settings. The Autoplay mode and Track mode can also be enabled through the settings. You can use the app in light or dark mode through the settings (and some other features).

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, custom version, special requests or questions, please send an email to info@phdsoftware.nl.

Release history

BluAS examples

BluAS examples (recordings)