MBXHub

MBXHub Icon

The bridge to everything else.

MBXHub

MBXHub transforms your media library into a network-accessible exchange service. Control or access from any device. Integrate with any system.

Dashboard (v0.5.3.5)

Ctrl+K Search

Dashboard Search

Dashboard Search Results

Why MBXHub?

MusicBee is a powerful desktop music player, but it's trapped on a single machine. MBXHub breaks it free - enabling control from any device, integration with any system, and access from anywhere on your local network.

Easy to Configure

The Dashboard adapts to your setup. Scale it for a phone or a living room TV, pick your theme, choose which panels to show, and drag to reorder. All from MBXHub Settings.

QR Connect

Tap the QR icon to share the dashboard with any device. Guests scan to connect instantly - no URL typing needed.

Scaling

Built-in zoom levels let the dashboard fill a phone screen or a living room TV. Pick the size that fits your display.

Layout Control

Show or hide any panel. Drag to reorder. Set how many panels stay visible vs. collapsible. Seven configurable sections.

BYOWA - Bring Your Own Web App

MBXHub serves HTML. Build your own player UI that calls the REST API. Start fresh using llms.txt with Claude, or just use the included examples.

Player

Full-featured music browser included as a sample. 3-column layout with library browse, now playing, and queue management. Responsive for desktop and mobile.

  • Browse Albums, Artists, Genres, Playlists, Podcasts, Radio, Moods
  • Search your library
  • Queue tracks: Now, Next, or Last
  • Listen Here — stream audio to the browser
  • Live WebSocket updates

Learn more

PartyMode

Let the party pick the music. Big artwork display, guest song requests with PIN, vibes voting, and DJ controls.

  • Search and Queue tracks with DJ
  • Guests connect via QR code scan and can give requests and reactions
  • TV-friendly display with lyrics
  • Reactions with floating emojis
  • AutoQ - Vibe-based 'AutoQ' track selection

Learn more

Ideas

What would you build? The API is yours to explore.

  • Kiosk - Now playing on a living room TV
  • Car Mode - Big buttons for dashboard tablet
  • Voice - "Play something by The Beatles"

Network Discovery

MBXHub announces itself on the local network using SSDP and WS-Discovery. Find it automatically in Windows Explorer under Network.

MBXHub in Windows Network

Network Discovery

Components

MBXHub

The core. REST API with 155+ endpoints, WebSocket events, built-in Now Playing dashboard, and self-hosted API docs with examples.

API Docs · Features

Dashboard

Built-in Now Playing web UI. Real-time updates via WebSocket. Control playback from any browser.

Learn more

Library Browser

Browse your library from any device. Album grid with artwork, search, and one-tap queue. 7 tabs — Albums, Artists, Genres, Playlists, Podcasts, Radio, Moods.

Learn more

ARiA

Remote automation. Send keyboard/mouse input, trigger hotkeys, run macros with DuckyScript syntax.

ARiA Docs

AutoQ

Vibe-based intelligent queue. Multi-factor scoring picks the right track using mood, reactions, influences, and diversity. Genre-aware weight adjustment and confidence scoring make mood estimates smarter and more transparent.

The Audio Features

MBXHub Shell
MBXHub SMTC - Windows media transport controls

Standalone EXE with Windows app identity (AUMID HALRAD.MBXHub). The SMTC bridge surfaces MBXHub's now-playing in the Windows media flyout, lock screen, and Bluetooth AVRCP — branded as MBXHub, not as a generic browser tab. The Shell lives in the system tray: click to open MusicBee, retarget SMTC to a different MBXHub instance on the network, enable/disable the bridge, or reconnect after a network blip. Auto-reconnects to MusicBee on its own.

MBXHub SMTC - Windows media transport controls

Learn more

Influences and Reactions

Influences shape the mix — thumbs up an artist to hear more of them, thumbs down a genre to fade it out. Reactions are per-track vibes: fire a track you love, thumbs-down one that killed the mood. AutoQ watches both and steers the queue toward what's landing.

Reaction buttons - Fire, Heart, Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down

Learn more

Charms

Mini web apps on the dashboard charm bar. Browse your library, control network speakers, switch audio output devices, and manage volume — all without leaving the dashboard.

Charm Bar


Mixer


Now Playing

Up Next

Lyrics

Learn more

Network Discovery

MBXHub announces itself on the local network using SSDP and WS-Discovery. Find it automatically in Windows Explorer under Network.

Get Started

Requirements

Roadmap

v0.4.5 - Dashboard, Influences, Network Discovery, Firewall Config

v0.4.6 - PartyMode, Static Pages, BYOWA

v0.4.7 - API Access Control

v0.4.8 - MBXQ merge

v0.4.9 - AutoQ, Tiered Reactions, Leaderboard, Floating Emojis

v0.5.0 - MBXHub.exe Shell (SMTC bridge, Windows identity)

v0.5.0.1 - WS-Discovery, SSDP enhancements, dashboard scaling, QR connect, layout controls

v0.5.0.2 - RemoteApp for MusicBee (RDP), REST API + Shell CLI

v0.5.0.3 - Device Proxy

v0.5.0.4 - Charms, Charm Bar

v0.5.0.5 - Phantom device support

v0.5.0.6 - Podcast support, Listen Here audio streaming

v0.5.0.7 - Genre-aware mood tuning, confidence scoring, mood combo labels

v0.5.0.8 - Library browser, diacritic-aware search, responsive player

v0.5.0.9 - Performance optimizations, playlist folder grouping

v0.5.1.1 - Taste Explorer, DJ Taste Tab, Mixer Charm, Album Artist browsing, Album Grid enhancements

v0.5.1.2 - Mixer: multi-fader volume control, Windows device volume, network speaker integration, mDNS discovery

v0.5.1.3 - Audio device enumeration, dashboard charm persistence

v0.5.1.4 - Unified browse, persistent charms, on-demand mood scanning, HSL theme system

v0.5.1.5 - Mobile gestures, improved search

v0.5.1.6 - Mood Data Everywhere

v0.5.1.7 - SMTC Link Charm, remote control made easy

v0.5.1.8 - Crate full of albums, artwork explorer

v0.5.1.9 - Dashboard search, 6 now-playing display styles, configurable charm buttons and progress bar, startup diagnostics

v0.5.2.0 - MusicBee API v58, browse tracks tab, video actions, high-DPI/4K fixes, case-insensitive search, mobile touch targets

v0.5.2.1 - Men at Work: immersive blur-fill artwork, REST observability, API v58 endpoints, volume & pinch-zoom toggles

v0.5.2.2 - Search Party: fix regressions in search

v0.5.2.3 - Whole Lotta Love: XL Charms: charm-bar XL/XXL sizes, per-charm layout, ARiA Charm, NP Fixes

v0.5.2.4 - Moodserver: Dynamic Range as a mood feature, Essentia LRA through scan/MetaServer/AutoQ mixer (MetaServer pipeline removed in v0.5.2.7 — DR still ships via offline truedat → mbxmoods.json), arousal weight slider

v0.5.2.5 - Worker Bee / Beekeeper’s Daughter: new play.html device-adaptive 1/2/3-column player; dashboard theme color picker redesign

v0.5.2.6 - A Plethora of Settings and More: Standalone/Island/Fleet installation profiles (removed in v0.5.2.7), Shell tray + auto-launch MusicBee, settings UX rework, /diag perf page, configurable transport extra button

v0.5.2.7 - Nothing Else Matters: AutoQ reads a static mbxmoods.json populated offline by truedat; Shell focuses on SMTC, tray, and Windows identity

v0.5.2.8 - Technologic: Shell tray switches the Windows media controls to any MBXHub on your network; new dashboard nowplaying sizing knobs (width, height, gutter, art fit); Shell installs and removes its own firewall rule

v0.5.2.9 - Play On: play.html evolved — in-popover playlist picker (Play / Queue Next / Queue Last / Add); ▾ overflow holds mixer, ARiA, shuffle/repeat, AutoDJ, size cycle; middle-pane buttons gain charm icons (compass / magnifier / note); cycle button previews the next mode; ☰ collapses the artist drawer on desktop; ⇅ toggles only the right column; narrow right-edge gripper; transport stays single-row at every width

v0.5.3.0 - Play On, Cmd and Search More: hit Ctrl+K anywhere, find anything. Plain words or sharp queries like year:1965 rating:>4.

v0.5.3.1 - Bring It On Home, Come Together: history.html for viewing the previously played track list; hubs.html to quickly navigate to other libraries (fed by Shell SSDP hub-neighbors discovery); refined play.html with Listen Here support.

v0.5.3.2 - Relentless / Drive: AutoQ mood-band rework — new Relentless 💀 and Edge 🤘 channels, default positions tuned so genres like metal and aggressive rock stop collapsing into adjacent buckets, secondary-combo threshold raised so dual-band labels only show when both are genuinely close. Existing configs auto-migrate. Also: new Only-show-local-images Media setting blocks online artist-picture sources (default off).

v0.5.3.3 - New Parmesan: new VAM (valence-arousal ML model) for AutoQ — trained Ridge/PCA classifier reading additional Essentia features (HPCP entropy/crest, HFC, spectral complexity, chord strength). Auto-Cal is the operator-facing loop: anchor playlist, annotate/judge pipeline, gates panel measuring drift against your anchors. New SSDP banned-peers list.

v0.5.3.4 - Sort of Evolution: waveform scrubber on play.html and the dashboard progress bar (peak + RMS painted behind the played-portion fill, backed by /nowplaying/sound-graph-ex); user-defined custom sort orders over any MusicBee tag (Custom1–16, Virtual1–25, year / sort fields), exposed in the Albums tab's sort dropdown next to the built-ins; redesigned dashboard theme color picker with per-channel HSL controls.

v0.5.3.5 (current) - Cue It Up: time-coded setlists in the Comment tag now render as a Tracklist tab on nowplaying.html and a SET LIST chip on the immersive dashboard. One click writes a real CUE sidecar so the album expands into virtual tracks across browse, search, queue, and the wavescrubber. Now-Playing right-click context menu: Open artist in browse, Copy filename / file path / folder path, and Copy deep link — a shareable URL that lands on the same track in browse. Fan Art and Video tabs added to the Extras panel.

Project background at halrad.com/mbxhub