[sailingharry]

I apologize if this has been discussed before. I have tried searching, and just can't seem to come up with the right terms.

I have an Android TV box with Kodi installed, and I'm using this as a media center on a boat. It works GREAT!

The TV is not actually installed, and is put away when we are traveling, but I would like to continue to use the media center for music. Without the TV as a display, I can't control it. Kore looks like the answer.

The challenge is that we do not have a network. I have tried setting the tv box to share internet, and then use my phone to connect to that, no luck. Also tried the reverse.

Any suggestions on how to use an Android phone to control Kodi on an Android TV, without adding a separate router?

[Klojum]

Maybe it's my tingling spider sense, but ... sailing a x-thousand dollar big boat, but a 50-60 dollar router is problematic?

I'm missing a couple of things here: what (network) device are the music files stored on? What speaker device will be outputting the music noise?

And to keep things really simple: how about storing your music files on your phone and run Kodi on it, and play the music via Bluetooth to whatever speaker(s) you have. That way there is no need for a wireless network or for KoRe at all.

[sailingharry]

The dollar expense is not really an issue. More of an issue is we will not be near a mailing address for another 2 months, and even stores require effort to reach. So I'm trying to use what we have on board. Another issue is power supplies, we try not to run the inverter because it consumes the batteries, and so we try and run everything on 12 volts. The TV box runs off of a USB power jack and the TV itself is actually native 12 volts. But I think the future does include a router, on the list for this winter.

The stereo has Bluetooth, so using the phones is an option. We currently have all of our music on an external hard drive plugged into the TV box. When advantage of the phones is we can put her music on her phone and my music on my phone!

[Klojum]

Depending on the length in days of your travels, your battery capacity seems on the low side to me. Like in "van life", I prefer to have more capacity than I'll ever need. Something like 3 times the size, because there can always be those situations where you need that extra electric juice. Do you have the option to charge those batteries via your boat's engine (most sailing boats do have one, right?), solar panels or perhaps a small wind turbine?

I think you can easily do without the inverter if you can fit your music collection onto your phone(s). How large is that music collection anyway, disk-size wise?

Using separate USB speakers would be my best bet. I use a simple & small JBL bluetooth speaker myself all the time. One USB charge will do 5-6 hours.