BirdNET-Pi-Operation
Once the Pi reboots from setup, and gets everything up and running (it takes a couple of minutes sometimes), you should be good to go. If you entered credentials for your wireless network you should be able to access BirdNET through any browser on the network by accessing birdnetpi1.local unless you changed that during setup. When using Putty to access the system, you’ll have to know the ip of the Pi - this is where Fing comes in handy.
The reports look kind of wonky until you start to collect some data. Going to “Settings” (pwd is birdnet) takes you to a ton of configuration and management settings.
Check that soundcard/mic are working If the “Currently Analyzing” screen (second screen) has some colors in it everything is working - you should be able to make a noise of some sort and it will show up on the display after a few seconds. If the sceen is black, you have a soundcard/mic issue or don’t have something plugged in. Make sure that you have TRRS cords/mic - this gave me fits - the mic I originally purchased(TRS) refused to work with the Pi, even with an adapter. Other mics worked fine.
Early on I had to tinker with some of the soundcard settings. These issues went away with later installs.
Find card number
aplay -l # will list devices - note which card number is assigned to USB Audio
Edit alsa.conf
sudo nano /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf
Scroll and find the following two lines:
defaults.ctl.card 0
defaults.pcm.card 0
Change the card number to match the card number of the USB device:
defaults.ctl.card 1
defaults.pcm.card 1
Doesn’t require reboot
Accessing the Pi in the field
By configuring the Pi to setup its own access point(AP), you can access the Pi with your phone or tablet. If configured properly, the Pi will attempt to connect normally but if it doesn’t detect the right network it will create its own AP - this may take a few minutes to happen. You should see a new network available on your phone - go ahead and connect to it from your phone.
You should now be able to reach birdnet with a browser at http://192.168.16.1 Keep in mind that birdnetpi.local won’t work now because you are on a different network with a different IP.
You can set up a hotspot on your phone and configure the Pi to connect to it as well. I had some unresolved issues getting the page to open using a hotspot, and needed other folks to have access, so an Access Point worked better.
How to use BirdNET Pi in the field without home router access
How To: Raspberry Pi Multiple WiFi Networks
How to set WiFi network priority?
Check date/time If the device hasn’t been connected to the internet lately, the date/time will be wrong as the Pi has no real time clock (RTC) but depends on getting the time from the internet.
Set time and date manually
date # to check time
sudo date –s “13:45 June 21” # to set time