SparkFun Qwiic MP3 Trigger

Sometimes you just need an MP3 to play. Whether it's a theme song as you enter the room or a power song when you are working out. The SparkFun Qwiic MP3 Trigger takes care of all the necessary requirements, all you need to do is send a simple I2C command and listen to whatever is on your micro SD card. Utilizing our handy Qwiic system, no soldering is required to connect it to the rest of your system. However, we still have broken out 0.1"-spaced pins in case you prefer to use a breadboard.

When a USB-C cable is connected to the Qwiic MP3 Trigger the contents of the microSD card appears as a jump drive. Simply plug in the Qwiic MP3 Trigger and you'll be transferring MP3s, no need for drivers and no need for WAV or Vorbis conversion! Sound output is provided via a 3.5mm headphone jack or poke-home connector allowing an external speaker to be connected without soldering. Your supplied speaker is boosted by a Class-D mono amplifier capable of outputting up to 1.4W making it capable of being incredibly loud! Volume is software selectable between 32 levels while equalization can be tuned to be sure your classical hits sound different from your jazz dance routines. If you don't want to deal with any programming, there are four trigger pins. When pin 3 is pulled low the T003.mp3 file will immediately be played. This allows you to start playing sound effects with the touch of a button! By pulling multiple pins down simultaneously the four triggers can play up to ten tracks: T001 to T010. Up to 255 tracks can be loaded onto the SD card and triggered via the I2C interface.

All settings including volume, EQ, and I2C address are stored in NVM and loaded at each power up. The I2C address of the Qwiic MP3 Trigger can be modified via a solder jumper or be assigned using a software command. Multiple Qwiic MP3 Triggers can be chained together on a single bus allowing for simultaneous track mixing and triggering.

We've written an extensive Arduino library to make MP3 playing over I2C a breeze. Play tracks, change volume, play next/previous, check if track is playing, stop play, change EQ, and change I2C address are all supported.


The SparkFun Qwiic Connect System is an ecosystem of I2C sensors, actuators, shields and cables that make prototyping faster and less prone to error. All Qwiic-enabled boards use a common 1mm pitch, 4-pin JST connector. This reduces the amount of required PCB space, and polarized connections mean you can’t hook it up wrong.


  • Operating voltage: 3.3V
  • Current consumption:
    • 40mA standy
    • 40mA when playing over headphones at any volume level
    • 150mA-300mA when driving external 8Ω speaker at full volume setting
  • microSD supports 128MB to 32GB cards
  • Volume, EQ setting, and I2C address settings stored in non-volatile memory and loaded at each power-on
  • WT2003S MP3 decoder IC provides USB access to microSD socket (up to 32GB) and MP3 decoding
  • ATtiny84 receives I2C commands and controls the MP3 decoder
  • Poke-home connector allows for sturdy but temporary speaker connection without soldering
  • Trigger pins 1, 2, 3, and 4. When pins 1+4 are pulled low simultaneously T005.mp3 will play
  • Up to 255 tracks can be loaded onto the SD card and triggered via the I2C interface
  • Built-in TPA2005D1 based 1.4W Class-D mono amplifier
  • Address jumper to select between I2C address 0x37 (default) and 0x38. I2C address is also configurable via software to one of 110 different addresses.
  • USB-C Connector
  • Qwiic Connector

Revision Changes: This revision of the SparkFun Qwiic MP3 Trigger, we have only made one change to improve the ease of use of the board, listed below. If users are unsure about which version they purchased, please refer to the product pictures.

  • The SparkFun Qwiic MP3 Trigger uses the TPA2005D1 Audio AMP IC. In the past we have noticed some "popping noises and found that we should update some capacitor values in the audio path to prevent this. According to the the TPA2005D1 datasheet: "If the corner frequency is within the audio band, the capacitors should have a tolerance of +/-10% or better, because any mismatch in capacitance causes an impedance mismatch at the corner frequency and below, and causes "pop."

SparkFun Qwiic MP3 Trigger Product Help and Resources

Comments

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We welcome your comments and suggestions below. However, if you are looking for solutions to technical questions please see our Technical Assistance page.

  • Member #206148 / about 4 years ago / 3

    Stop/Pause I2C example fails to stop or pause tracks! Endless loop!

  • Member #38769 / about 3 years ago / 2

    I came back to order another one after a year plus of working as a kids toy. Disappointed that the product is discontinued I hope there will be a new run soon. Great product in my humble opinion!

Customer Reviews

2.2 out of 5

Based on 6 ratings:

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3 of 3 found this helpful:

Bad Batch of boards

These boards are supposed to be nearly plug-and-play, however they don't enumerate as USB drives under any of my computers, windows or linux. Sparkfun sent me both a replacement board and sd-card. Neither one will enumerate. I managed to load files onto the card externally, and on the replacement board they play in an endless loop when triggered.

I don't know if someone substituted chips, or they are just faulty, but they don't work.

And my last emails to sparkfun asking them to test a few off out of their stock have gone unanswered. Complete 100% fail. I'll be getting my boards off ebay for now on.

We are working on this issue, thank you for bringing this to our attention. If you would like to return the product please consider filling out a return ticket here: https://www.sparkfun.com/returns

1 of 1 found this helpful:

Product does not work!!!

I ordered one of these modules and they do no work properly. The module does not stop/pause the current playing file. And on top of that, the module plays the same music file over and over in an endless loop. Sparkfun, my email I sent you a week ago has not been answered. Which means you are already aware this product does not work properly. Sparkfun please answer and handle customer technical issues in a timely manner. Taking 3 days to a week is too long for not answering or handling customer technical issues.

We are working on this issue, thank you for bringing this to our attention. If you would like to return the product please consider filling out a return ticket here: https://www.sparkfun.com/returns

1 of 1 found this helpful:

Loops forever

Unfortunately the trigger just loops the same audio clip one triggered. I have written about it in the forum, where several other customers report the same problem. I bought one of the old versions from Distrelec in Europe, but it does the same thing (as other users also have found out). It seems that after a certain batch number all/a lot of the triggers does not work as they should.

We are working on this issue, thank you for bringing this to our attention. If you would like to return the product please consider filling out a return ticket here: https://www.sparkfun.com/returns

Does the job

The connection to the host isn't stable, so it is better to transfer files some other way. Everything else works perfectly and VERY fast (I had to sync it to my light show project)

Does the job

This was my first time doing anything like this before. I was making a wood sign for the wife that i wanted to add a few songs to. I got this cheaper one because to be honest i didnt have a clue on how to do this. This board was pretty much plug and play after adding two trigger switches and a small speaker. the guide on the page was straight forward. I have not done a full test on it but so far it is doing what i hoped it would.

Have the same looping problem others describe

When I have a simple mp3 on the board, the mp3 will not stop looping. Also, when I set the volume higher, the mp3 playback becomes truncated and will not play the entire file..

I hope one can flash this and not have to go through returns. Looking forward to a fix. This is the type of board I have been looking for.