[SOLVED] LED indicator to show when music is playing

[Macdelf]

If only using MPD then one way to determine play state is via the command below.

Code:

# Playing
pi@moode:~ $ mpc status | grep playing
[playing] #50/50   0:10/0:39 (25%)

# Not playing
pi@moode:~ $ mpc status | grep playing
pi@moode:~ $

Here is a python script I use. I started with a display then found headless better. Just start this script in rc.local with
sudo python3 /home/pi/playled.py -d &

Code:

import os
import subprocess
import time

#os.system("sudo sh -c 'echo none > /sys/class/leds/led0/trigger'")
#os.system("sudo sh -c 'echo none > /sys/class/leds/led1/trigger'")

while True:
    output = subprocess.getoutput(["mpc -w status"])
    if "[playing]" in output:
        os.system("sudo sh -c 'echo 0 > /sys/class/leds/led0/brightness'")
        os.system("sudo sh -c 'echo 1 > /sys/class/leds/led1/brightness'")
#        print("Playing")
        os.system("mpc -q -w idle")

    else:
        if "[paused]" in output:
            os.system("sudo sh -c 'echo 0 > /sys/class/leds/led1/brightness'")
            os.system("sudo sh -c 'echo 1 > /sys/class/leds/led0/brightness'")
#            print("paused")
            os.system("mpc -q -w idle")
        else:
            os.system("sudo sh -c 'echo 0 > /sys/class/leds/led1/brightness'")
            os.system("sudo sh -c 'echo 0 > /sys/class/leds/led0/brightness'")
#            print("stopped")
            os.system("mpc -q -w idle")

Brilliant, thanks Macdelf I'm going to try this. How do I specify which GPIO/PIN it will need to use for the LED?

None needed. This takes over the power/ status lights.
Red is playing
Green is paused
No light is stopped, that also means Moode has booted.
As you probably guessed just insert the code into a file called playled.py in your home directory then edit rc.local in the /etc/ one to add the python 3 command.