Alternatives to Rose Connect (not Roon)

Function RoseConnect
#1

After a couple weeks of using my HifiRose 250A and driving it from the Rose Connect app, I can confidently say this is a trainwreck of an app. The device itself is fantastic, and the onboard UI is first-rate. Which makes the app experience that much more disappointing. I have this connected to my whole house audio system, and almost exclusively play music from the onboard SSD, so not having a functional app is problematic to say the least.

Are there any app alternatives that one can use besides Roon? I am literally looking to only navigate the on-board library, by album artist and maybe year, and the Rose Connect app forces you to go through three screens to get to a place where you can only navigate by artist OR album.

The app is clearly designed with a online streaming customer in mind, which makes almost no sense, since that customer is going to navigate from the native app, not from the Connect app. And from reading in this community, it is pretty clear they are not going to improve the app experience, only fix bugs. So I’m just looking to see what, if any options, a customer has.

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#2

Navigating the library you have imported into Rose itself? Not really, they do not currently expose any APIs to make writing a third party app to browse it feasible. If you want to navigate a library somewhere and play it to Rose, it is supposed to be compatible with Audirvana. A UPNP solution might work, too. Synology’s Audio Station does see Rose and can push to it. Probably could use Plex, too…

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#3

Thanks, that is what I suspected, but I appreciate the confirmation.

#4

You’re welcome.

IMHO, Roon is pretty much the only trouble-free (so far, knock on wood, etc. etc.) part of Rose experience. If not for Roon, I’d probably trade mine in for NAD or something. BluOS at least is usable…

#5

For me (primarily using Roon) also Lyrion/LMS with the UPNP plugin is an option, which runs mostly stable with Hifi Rose.
But also here, you must have an external server with the needed software (very easy to use is daphile) and library on it.

#6

Thanks burki, but that defeats my purpose here. Trying to play the files locally, from the device.

And I have a metered cellular internet connection, so Roon is not an option for me.

#7

But what do you expect?
Rose OS isn’t an open Android and so you can’t install any special player on it.
Lyrion can installed on a very small PC on your network and (but it’s not a good solution) can use the audio files on your Rose device as source.
If you don’t have a local LAN, then buy for a few bucks a small switch and two LAN cables.

#8

I wasn’t looking to install a player on it, but use a navigation tool to play on the device. BubbleuPnP is a good example of a tool that can play files on the device, but it still has limitations.

#9

You can say no Roon, but for about $1500 (lifetime Roon and a Nucleus one) you have a system that works with virtually any streamer/DAC and turns Rose into a great system. I consider it the best audio “component” purchase I have ever made. And you get room correction via DSP, equalization etc. People keep chasing (spending $$) streamers to find software that they like and there in a do everything one right in front of us.

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#10

And if one has some spare PC sitting in the storage, you don’t even need a Nucleus either.

#11

I’m saying no to Roon because I don’t have internet to support it. So again, Roon does not work for me.

#12

You’d have gotten much better help if you would have stated in your original post that the solution must be free from the internet.

#13

He did say it earlier. In any event I am glad you are happy with Roon, my next step in the direction of streaming sanity.

#14

It doesn’t have to be “free from the internet”. It has to be reasonable in bandwidth, which Roon is not.

The title of my post says “not Roon”, but that doesn’t ever stop people from recommending it.

#15

But… you do not need the internet (other than occasional license checks that don’t use too much bandwidth) to use Roon. Granted, it would be a limited experience, but it would work, and stream to Rose just fine.

But in your case, a good UPNP control is probably what you need…

#16

The first thing Roon does upon implementation is sync your library with their database, and send content to the app to reflect your listening.

I have over a thousand albums stored on my device. It will kill my connection. I know this because I already tried it. Which is again why I said “not Roon” clearly in my post title.

When someone says they are looking for something, and then specifically say “not this”, it is safe to assume that they know whether “this” works for them or not.

#17

Or maybe not. You can disable metadata updates and use file tags only. Anyway, we’ve already established what the options are (and nothing would work very well if you do store files on Rose’s internal drive anyway). I wouldn’t really advocate using Roon in your case as you’d be paying for a lot of functionality you can’t quite use, but that said, you absolutely can use it without internet. I’m just not sure it’d be worth the price, but that’s another issue.