Play Audio Files and Streams with WAM Bridge

WAM Bridge streams audio by encoding it through FFmpeg, serving the result via a local HTTP endpoint, and starting playback on the speaker using Samsung's SetUrlPlayback API. All sources (local files, Ogg, HLS, HTTPS streams) are proxied through the local server; WAM Bridge never hands a remote URL directly to the speaker.

Basic playback#

# By saved device aliaswambridge "D:\Music\track.opus" --device M5 --volume 3# By IP addresswambridge "D:\Music\track.opus" --speaker 192.168.1.50# Internet streamwambridge "https://example.net/radio-stream" --speaker 192.168.1.50# Ogg filewambridge "D:\Music\track.ogg" --speaker 192.168.1.50

When exactly one speaker is discovered on the LAN, you can omit --speaker or --device.

Probe a speaker before playing#

wambridge --speaker 192.168.1.50 --probewambridge --device M5 --probe

--probe checks connectivity and prints the speaker's current status without starting playback.

Output format#

WAM Bridge defaults to FLAC encoding. Use MP3 if FLAC is unstable on a particular firmware revision:

wambridge "D:\Music\track.opus" --speaker 192.168.1.50 --format mp3

Volume#

The Shape M5 uses raw API volume steps 0 to 30. Model-aware percentage conversion is not yet implemented, so treat all volume arguments as raw steps.

# Set playback volumewambridge "D:\Music\track.opus" --device M5 --volume 3# Set only the startup ceiling, preserve quieter current volumewambridge "D:\Music\track.opus" --device M5 --max-start-volume 3

How the local stream works#

• The stream uses HTTP/1.0 without chunked transfer for compatibility with old firmware.
• The URL contains a random session token and exists only for the duration of the command.
• SetUrlPlayback may freeze certain firmware revisions if the stream body is not recognized as audio. WAM Bridge exposes only FFmpeg output and returns 404 for all other paths.
• Use WAM Bridge only on a trusted LAN. The local stream is plain HTTP and its random session token is carried in the URL; the token prevents accidental reuse but is not an access-control boundary against a malicious device that can observe local network traffic.
• Do not expose the bridge HTTP port or port 55001 to the internet.

Latency#

Pause, stop, and skip carry PCM pipeline latency because they act through the PCM path. The host buffer with buffer_extra=0 is approximately 1.9 seconds. Setting hardware_volume=1 routes volume control directly to the speaker instead, which responds in about one second.