DIY Pandora alarm clock

A very long time ago, I was part of a community that reverse-engineered the serial control protocol for the XMPCR - a USB controlled XM radio. I wrote Mac software for it and wound up using it as an alarm clock. I used a cron job and woke up to Squizz (later Octane) every weekday morning.

But then Pandora came along. XM was just too expensive by comparison, so I've been a Pandora One listener for a while. I switched from using a laptop to a Chumby so that I could move the laptop out of the bedroom. And that was fine, but then Chunby fell on hard times and I moved on. My current alarm clock is a box from Grace Audio. And it works ok, but I've gotten into the Raspberry Pi of late, which makes me think maybe I could make my own equivalent.

What got me thinking about this was an item on last week's show-n-tell. A guy showed a LCD screen, Internet connected Arduino alarm clock. I think Pandora would be a bit much to ask of an Arduino, but it should be no problem for a Pi.  

Pithos is a Linux Pandora Radio client. I haven't yet tried it, but it likely would need a different UI in any event. My thought is that a B+ Pi with a touch screen would be a good way to start.

I'll have to think some more about this...