HIFI Rose merely a hobby brand or a serious business, that is the question?

#62

Ryan,

I’ve been an owner for about six months now. I have found that the hardware design and construction are excellent. However, in that time I’ve seen on this board a near unanimous opinion from users of exactly what you are articulating. The design, usability and operability of the software are poor. The decision tree is a Sudoku. There are hints but no clear direction (three dots?). The search function a user would start with is three levels deep. The SQL query imitations are arbitrary and unnecessary.

An easy suggestion would be to take a look at the organization of the better high end streamers’ software. The solution is easy. All it takes is a decision and money. Hence your question. Is HiFi Rose a hobby brand or a serious business. It holds so much promise that it would be a shame to continue to hobble its success with janky software. I could even wait for it to evolve if I could see fundamental progress instead of trimming around the edges. I’d love to hear from Jong-Suh Kim or his representative what the philosophy and future direction of the company will be.

StandardModel

#63

I’m one of those people who hopes that these products are not the owner’s hobby.

They’ve solved a lot of problems along the way. I’m not demeaning their efforts.
I’ve consistently asked questions about their philosophy on user experience.
The reason for that question is because of the special segment of products they have created and will continue to create.

If it’s a knob-type piece of hardware with a heritage and reputation, I’m not wasting my time writing about it, because I’m the one who chose the four-knob chunk, and it’s impossible to change that physical dial to five or three.

They may be uncomfortable with my prediction, but I’m just deploring the hardware-centric thinking of the owners and organization, their kiosk expertise, and their history of acquiring small audio companies.

I don’t see this machine as a hardware product.
Their product is no different than the iPhone and Galaxy, only with a phone and camera.
If this company focuses solely on how it looks and sounds, it will eventually fade into obscurity with a half-assed product in a market it has worked hard to capture.

@StandardModel you are right, it takes determination and investment. I’m hoping to see a major overhaul of RoseOS soon, with user experience experts brought in from the outside - ad hoc usability improvements will only make RoseOS more complicated and tangled.

I’m sorry, but based on the kiosk type reply from the Rose Staff here over the past year, I doubt that’s possible.

2 Likes
#64

The hardware is. great. No issues there. The problem, of course, is that once the hardware is in place it’s a hunk of aluminum without good software. As Apple, Blusound, Eversolo, Wiim and everybody else knows full well.
I haven’t heard a single user defend RoseConnect, the HiFi Rose software, for good reason. Good hardware is necessary but not sufficient for a successful product. Over and over again on this forum it’s either bring the software up to the level of the competition or slowly die. In my opinion, as much as the RS 130 looks to be a great streamer, the money would have been much better spent on bringing RoseConnect up to the level of the competition.

StandardModel

2 Likes
#65

“They may be uncomfortable with my prediction, but I’m just deploring the hardware-centric thinking of the owners and organization, their kiosk expertise, and their history of acquiring small audio companies.”

To the man with Hammer, everything looks like a nail.

StandardModel

#66

I think they should re-program the software from the start
Just keep the current app so people can use their device and meanwhile start developing a brand new app which works like it should do without all the issues it has at this moment.

6 Likes
#67

Wiim Pro is $149.00 on Amazon. They publish their software roadmap: Solution home WiiM Roadmap WiiM Roadmap

WiiM Pro Roadmap[ Print](javascript:print():wink:

Modified on: Thu, Jul 20, 2023 at 4:21 PM

What we’re working on …

Welcome to the WiiM Roadmap. We’d like to give you visibility into some of the features we are working on. Our official release notes have the full list of released features. If you would like to make a feature or product request, please post it on our WiiM Forum.

Please note: The dates and features listed below may change or be removed at any time without any notification. Consequently, purchases should not be based on what is listed on the roadmap.

Upcoming Features

Features we’re thinking about in future updates:

  • Multiroom of hi-res audio
  • Favorites section - The user’s favorite tracks, playlists, stations, podcasts, and recently played are listed in the favorites section of the app
  • Support SMB for music sharing
  • Support landscape mode on tablets (Android)
  • New music services such as Idagio, SiriusXM, Nugs.net, KKBox, RadioParadise, etc.
  • Play music from personal cloud storage (Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud, etc.)
  • Users can select the streaming quality in the “Now Play” app UI
  • Improved NAS and DLNA DMS features
  • Cast to Sonos and other 3rd DLNA devices
  • Crossfade
  • Support native Squeezelite client

StandardModel

1 Like
#69

Hi Tylerbayles,

I am sorry to reply your question late. My loudspeakers did survive, they still played music but I cannot tell if they suffered any small un-noticable damage. I will report in a separate post about the progress I made referring my problems with R150.

#70

Hi to all, I would like to update the progress I made.

I sent my R150 back to the local distributor. It took them more than two months to find out the faulty part was the Front Panel Assembly. They said the faulty Front Panel Asssembly messed up the on-off touch sensitive switch and the vloume + and - touch sensitive switch, so that I could not switch the unit on and I could not control the volume properly, hence my problem of having the volume ghostly turned up to +99 by the unit itself.

They waited for a few weeks to get a new Front Panel Assembly from Korea and replaced it. Now I retrieved the unit back home. It is playing music now.

I am thinking a faulty Front Panel Assembly could blow the volume to +99 by itself then damaged my speakers. This is a horrible design bug. The R150 is not safe to be used as a Pre-Amp.

I decide to junk R150 and buy an integrated music streamer + pre-amp with proper volume control such as TEAC UD701n.

1 Like