I don’t actually have a pool, but I think this description helps to demonstrate my goal. What I want to do is play music on the outdoor “pool speakers” when I am not connected to my home wi-fi, i.e. I want to control the music when I am on the far side of the “pool”, out of range of my home wifi, but my Android phone is connected to the Internet via cell data connection.
I have outdoor speakers attached to my home (facing the “pool”). I currently use Chromecast Audio devices and music on a DLNA server, but I am willing to move music files, replace the Chromecast Audio device to a different device, etc. When I am in my house, all of my devices (including my Chromecasts) are on the same subnet 192.168.8.X. I use BubbleUPnP to send music on my DLNA server to the Chromecast Audio connected to the outdoor “pool” speakers, and all works well. Also, while connected to the home wifi, I am able to play audio on my Android phone (as opposed to the DLNA server) and cast it to the same “pool” outdoor speakers via a connected Chromecast. All of this works well.
My home has 4 GL-B1300. One serves as my gateway router (192.168.8.1). For various reasons, I flashed it with vanilla OpenWRT to replace the GL-inet firmware, but can certainly change it to the latest v3 GL-inet firmware if that helps. The other 3 GL-B1300’s (192.168.8.2…4) are set up with the default GL-inet firmware, and configured as Access Points (APs). All AP B1300’s have a wired connection to the Gateway Router.
I also have at my disposal various Win10 and Ubuntu computers and a Raspberry PI 4.
While I can pursue a wi-fi range extender to cover the outdoor pool area, I’d like to first consider the “VPN approach”, i.e. Android phone, connected to cellular data, connected to a VPN server inside my home (potentially on the main gateway router). Once connected, I want to start music playback, change volume, skip to next track, etc.
I will only be able to reuse the Chromecast connected to the pool speakers if I can somehow traverse the subnets where the audio device (currently Chromecast) subnet from the seperate VPN subnet (which my phone would be connected). Is this possible via routing rules or other means?
Alternatively, I think I could replace the pool Chromecast with a laptop, add the music to the same laptop, and attach the laptop to the same VPN that I connect my Internet-connected Android phone. I think the biggest negative with this approach is that I’d have to connect my phone to the VPN even if I am inside the house (with my phone connected to my home wifi). Is there a way to access the same laptop from my home subnet AND the VPN subnet (even if I added, for example, a USB-to-ethernet device to give two ethernet connections to the same laptop)?
What should I do? Any and all advice and experiences are welcome!