Did I buy the wrong thing? Can I do what I'm trying to do?

[ThGonz]

The goal: play music on Pandora over a cell phone in two rooms through eight speakers total, while being able adjust volume in both rooms separate of one another. Sounds easy, right?

The problem: It's in my Dad's cabinet shop. The only internet he has is on his phone, and he has zero interest in having separate internet to accomplish this goal.

The background: I purchased a Wiim Pro and an eight channel power amplifier on the recommendation of a salesman at Crutchfields. He told me that my Dad could connect to the Wiim Pro via Bluetooth and play Pandora over his cell internet through the amp via the WP. This does not seem to be the case, as I can't for the life of me make it work. Crutchfields suggested buying a Wi-Fi router just to have a Wi-Fi network (just the network, no Wi-Fi internet) to unify his phone and the WP. I tried this, but the obvious problem occurred-his phone can't be on a Wi-Fi network and cellular internet at the same time (unless someone knows a trick to make that happen). I downloaded the app on his phone, updated the WP, and got everything working fine using my phone as a hotspot, but when I take my phone out of the equation, I can find no way to make this work.

Separate internet is off the table, as is a mobile hotspot, as well as using his phone as a Hotspot. Is there any way to make this work under these parameters? Am I just missing something? Any help/recommendations are appreciated.

Also-he is currently using a Bluetooth adapter to play music from his phone through the eight channel amp. This is obviously a poor solution, as he can't adjust the speaker volume independently in both rooms without physically pulling out the amp and adjusting the individual speaker volume on the back, and he has no equalizer, so his music sounds like trash.

 

[RyanWithWiiM]

Hi! WiiM devices ideally are used in an environment where there's WiFi and Internet access for them, so this definitely isn't a recommended setup. If you want to be able to group WiiM devices together and control their volume through the WiiM app, you'll need a wireless network to control them all, though that might work with an offline wireless network created by a separate router.

You could try getting everything configured like you did with your phone as a hot spot and a second phone as a controller, group it all together, get the devices set to the Bluetooth input, but as soon as that phone turns off the hot spot, the grouping will break (as this is done over a wireless network). A single WiiM device set up in Bluetooth mode should still work fine without a network, though you wouldn't be able to do much with it beyond sending the audio to it with Bluetooth.

Best suggestion if you want to stick with WiiM, try out getting that wireless router so you can group everything together and have a little better control using the WiiM app, but you'll still be very limited on functionality without an Internet connection.

Maybe some other community members have suggestions on offline setups that they can share!

 

[Wiimer]

The goal: play music on Pandora over a cell phone in two rooms through eight speakers total, while being able adjust volume in both rooms separate of one another. Sounds easy, right?

The problem: It's in my Dad's cabinet shop. The only internet he has is on his phone, and he has zero interest in having separate internet to accomplish this goal.

The background: I purchased a Wiim Pro and an eight channel power amplifier on the recommendation of a salesman at Crutchfields. He told me that my Dad could connect to the Wiim Pro via Bluetooth and play Pandora over his cell internet through the amp via the WP. This does not seem to be the case, as I can't for the life of me make it work. Crutchfields suggested buying a Wi-Fi router just to have a Wi-Fi network (just the network, no Wi-Fi internet) to unify his phone and the WP. I tried this, but the obvious problem occurred-his phone can't be on a Wi-Fi network and cellular internet at the same time (unless someone knows a trick to make that happen). I downloaded the app on his phone, updated the WP, and got everything working fine using my phone as a hotspot, but when I take my phone out of the equation, I can find no way to make this work.

Separate internet is off the table, as is a mobile hotspot, as well as using his phone as a Hotspot. Is there any way to make this work under these parameters? Am I just missing something? Any help/recommendations are appreciated.

Also-he is currently using a Bluetooth adapter to play music from his phone through the eight channel amp. This is obviously a poor solution, as he can't adjust the speaker volume independently in both rooms without physically pulling out the amp and adjusting the individual speaker volume on the back, and he has no equalizer, so his music sounds like trash.

Out of curiosity, can you tell us the model of your father's phone?

 

[jfbuk]

Hi THGonz,

You could

Also-he is currently using a Bluetooth adapter to play music from his phone through the eight channel amp. This is obviously a poor solution, as he can't adjust the speaker volume independently in both rooms without physically pulling out the amp and adjusting the individual speaker volume on the back, and he has no equalizer, so his music sounds like trash.

So is the issue really control of the amp not the Wiim ?
As I understand it you have one Wiim as an input and you need to control the volume in two separate amp speaker zones individually ?
What is the make and model of the amp ?
Certainly I can Bluetooth from my phone to my Wiim Pro which is hooked up to my receiver