Consonance
Description:
Our project aims to socialize the experience of streaming music. We often find ourselves in a world where people are isolated into their own soundscape, wearing headphones and going through their individual experiences. By creating a way to directly broadcast what listeners are hearing to those around them, this project creates a world of new possibilities for every day music listening, from simple bonding and interactions, to more complex silent discos. This app transforms the way people stream music.
Inspiration:
We were brainstorming at the idea jam and when this idea came up, we all got really excited about the possibilities of this. As people who like music and like to find music that others are listening to, we could all think of boundless opportunities for this.
What it does:
Our project currently broadcasts what users are listening to on Spotify to other users in realtime. Other users can click on the songs being listened to in order to tune in themselves.
How we built it:
We used Android Studio to create the general structure, Firebase for the backend, and the Spotify API to connect to music streaming. It's mainly scrapped together, learning on the job Java code that somehow comes together to create a mostly-functioning, pretty cool app.
Challenges we ran into:
None of us really knew the tech stack going into it, so this was hugely a learning experience. We each tackled learning things that we had no business working with and building up from scratch, minus the Spotify API.
Accomplishments that we're proud of:
We're very proud to have a real-time noSQL database that is regularly updated and that we have full CRUD functionality with. We're also really proud that the app is mainly bug-less and that we were able to get our app to interact with each other's Spotify accounts. Lastly, within the last hour we polished up a lot of the app and got the functionality to tune into other people's music.
What we learned:
We learned about databases, Android Studio, Git, and the Spotify API.
What's next:
We're looking to pretty up the front-end and get DJing set up. This way users can broadcast their music to other users and effectively create mobile silent discos wherever people are. Currently, people can tune in on other people, but there is no index of where they are in the song and everyone would be out of sync. Further, there's no way to gauge DJs or to connect to someone's stream. It currently only works to check out a song someone is listening to- which is still pretty cool!
Built with:
Android Studio, Firebase, Spotify API
Prizes we're going for:
Grand Prize
Hustle Award
Misfit Shine 2
$100 Amazon Gift Cards