Music service login should only be required once with multiple WiiM devices

[madbrain]

I have 12 WiiM Pro Plus, and am a Qobuz subscriber.

In order to listen to it on all 12 individually, I have to login to Qobuz 12 times - once for each WiiM device.

To make matters worse, periodically I need to login again. I don't know why. It happens in the native Qobuz Android app as well, and Windows app. But for those, I only need to do it once. For WiiM, it's all 12. It gets old.

The Qobuz Android app supports The WiiM only through the Chromecast interface, which doesn't support gapless playback.
That stop me from using it, as some of my favorite albums are gapless.

The WiiM app should be able to store the Qobuz (and other music services) credentials encrypted on the device, and allow them to be retrieved by, say, biometrics, instead of having to manually login again for each WiiM device.

I also use a music collection on my LAN through DLNA, but it's not password protected, so I don't have this problem. I assume if I had multiple music services, it would be an issue as well, not just with Qobuz.

 

[Mr Ee]

I have 12 WiiM Pro Plus, and am a Qobuz subscriber.

In order to listen to it on all 12 individually, I have to login to Qobuz 12 times - once for each WiiM device.

To make matters worse, periodically I need to login again. I don't know why. It happens in the native Qobuz Android app as well, and Windows app. But for those, I only need to do it once. For WiiM, it's all 12. It gets old.

The Qobuz Android app supports The WiiM only through the Chromecast interface, which doesn't support gapless playback.
That stop me from using it, as some of my favorite albums are gapless.

The WiiM app should be able to store the Qobuz (and other music services) credentials encrypted on the device, and allow them to be retrieved by, say, biometrics, instead of having to manually login again for each WiiM device.

I also use a music collection on my LAN through DLNA, but it's not password protected, so I don't have this problem. I assume if I had multiple music services, it would be an issue as well, not just with Qobuz.

And yet if you had twelve phones / tablets and you wanted to play Q on each of them you'd have to logon 12 times too.
I can see it's annoying, but really it's no different from any other device that requires individual authentication and occasional re-logon, as you note.

Hold on for Q Connect !

 

[madbrain]

And yet if you had twelve phones / tablets and you wanted to play Q on each of them you'd have to logon 12 times too.
I can see it's annoying, but really it's no different from any other device that requires individual authentication and occasional re-logon, as you note.

Hold on for Q Connect !

The facts remain that the Qobuz app only requires a single login per phone, and can cast to all 12 WiiMs, using the Chromecast protocol.
The WiiM app cannot do that. It is a deficiency, IMO.

With the WiiM app and multiple devices, you have to login not just for every WiiM device, or for every phone, but by the product of the two.
With, say, 2 phones, 1 tablet, and 12 WiiM devices, that's 36 Qobuz logins through the WiiM app, or 3 logins if you use the Qobuz app.

Those extra logins should not be required. No other streaming app requires multiple logins with multiple streaming devices.
The WiiM app is the odd duck here.

 

[Brantome]

The facts remain that the Qobuz app only requires a single login per phone, and can cast to all 12 WiiMs, using the Chromecast protocol.
The WiiM app cannot do that. It is a deficiency, IMO.

With the WiiM app and multiple devices, you have to login not just for every WiiM device, or for every phone, but by the product of the two.
With, say, 2 phones, 1 tablet, and 12 WiiM devices, that's 36 Qobuz logins through the WiiM app, or 3 logins if you use the Qobuz app.

Those extra logins should not be required. No other streaming app requires multiple logins with multiple streaming devices.
The WiiM app is the odd duck here.

To facilitate that, the WiiM app would need some sort of account and login itself to associate all your devices with the same person. As it stands, the WiiM app will discover and show all WiiM devices on your network. If you have more than one person on that network with their own WiiM devices as well, you’d then need to associate devices to accounts which brings its own challenges.

As suggested, the issue will all but go away when Qobuz bring out their own Connect protocol.

 

[madbrain]

I hope he's young enough

I'm no youngster anymore, sadly.

I had to Google what Q connect is.

Stream Qobuz Directly to Your HiFi System | Qobuz MAGAZINE

You might think you can only stream Qobuz from your smartphone or PC. However, there are many other possibilities available. We’ve recently taken a look at the various software solutions; now it’s time to delve into the different hardware options. Several manufacturing partners have integrated...

www.qobuz.com

It's hard to convery how upsetting reading that page was.

It starts from invalid assumptions, identifying problems that don't exist, and then comes up with mad solutions to those non-problems.

Quotes below are from Qobuz, not Achim .

If you’re using a portable device, then you’ll probably be listening with wireless headphones or a Bluetooth speaker.

Well, no, actually, 99.9% of the time when I use my portable device I cast onto home speakers. The 0.01% when I use bluetooth headphones is on the airplane. If I'm not within range of decent speakers, my phone just stays on mute.

With a PC, you’re more likely to be listening through the audio output: headphones, computer speakers or a wired connection to an external DAC.

Again, no, I sometimes cast to a Chromecast audio in my office from my PC because it has less jitter than the Firewire interface DAC.

The Qobuz app serves as a comprehensive music player: it retrieves the music, sends it to the audio output and controls the volume. Its operation is linear, so while this means other elements can’t interrupt the music stream, it does mean that playback from the Qobuz app is only intended for one audio output at a time.

One audio output at a time, except for the pesky fact that the Qobuz Android app supports Chromecast speaker groups. And possibly, the Qobuz iOS app may support Airplay2 groups - I'm not sure since I don't have an iOS device to verify.

There are hundreds of audio devices with integrated Qobuz, meaning you don’t necessarily need to use a smartphone or PC to access the Qobuz servers: you can use the HiFi equipment itself. If you’re using one of these devices, you’ll no longer use the Qobuz app since this is replaced by an app created by the device manufacturer.

This one is by far the stupidest part. I already own dozens of audio devices. Probably over a thousand if you are counting speaker, cables, etc. Many of them are quite old. Some one decade, some nearly 3. Not one of them has integrated Qobuz. There is no way I'm replacing them all to be able to use one streaming service.

It's also hard to conceive which device I'm going to be able to place in my hot tub to initiate audio playback, other than an IP67 battery-powered smartphone. In the past, before streamers and smartphones, I used an RF remote with CD changers. The remote never fell into the water, but it was such an inferior experience selecting music "blind" that I stopped using this method until the streamers came along.

Even if I bought into this madness of replacing every device, I don't see how it would solve anything with regards to Quboz logins. You would still have to login for each device, at them minimum. I have Marantz receivers which support other services, for example SiriusXM. Entering my randomly generated password with an infrared remote is not for the faint of the heart. It also requires turning on the display, which can take a while when it's a projector, reduces bulb life, and makes undesirable noise when one wants to just listen to music. The problem is the same for selecting music. You really don't want to use the device's remote to do that. And forget about using voice for that. Try asking Google home to play the 2nd version of Bach's Goldberg variations played by Pierre Hantaï on harpsichord, and see how far you get with it. You'll be lucky if it plays the 29th variation by Glenn Gould on piano, and not some completely unrelated pop music. I just don't see any viable alternative toa keyboard interface for selecting music. I hate virtual keyboards on smartphones, but they are still better than voice, and way better than an infrared remote.

I don't foresee a situation when I will want to initiate streaming from any device other than a smartphone. If I'm playing a physical disk, then, sure, I can use even a lowly IR remote. In other circumstances, no.

My home has a very heterogenous audio system. For example, I have 3 Marantz receivers of different generations, all Airplay capable, some Airplay2. All 3 do DLNA as well.
I also have 2 original Chromecast audio that remain and only offer the Chromecast protocol. Also 2 Chromecast with Google TV 4K, and 1 CC Ultra, only supporting Cast.
And I also have some devices with software renderers, like a Raspberry Pi with Kodi, JRiver MC on a PC, BubbleUPNP on my phone.

In total, counting the Chromecast groups, and all the hardware and software renderers, I have 16 Airplay devices, 21 Chromecast devices, and 22 DLNA devices, for a total of 59. The 12 WiiM acount for 36 of those.

The TLDR for this is simply

WTF

 

[Brantome]

The upcoming casting feature for Qobuz is called Qobuz Connect, unrelated to the Q Connect page in the app which has been a source of confusion ever since it first appeared a few years back.

Qobuz Connect compatible streamers

Besides the Google Chromecast Audio (or other Google Chromecast products), are there any stand alone streamers on the market that will connect to my Android phone using the built-in Qobuz Connect option in the native Qobuz app? I have found a list of products that work with their own apps, but...

www.avforums.com

 

[madbrain]

To facilitate that, the WiiM app would need some sort of account and login itself to associate all your devices with the same person. As it stands, the WiiM app will discover and show all WiiM devices on your network. If you have more than one person on that network with their own WiiM devices as well, you’d then need to associate devices to accounts which brings its own challenges.

As suggested, the issue will all but go away when Qobuz bring out their own Connect protocol.

The Qobuz app certainly doesn't require it. The streaming device isn't "owned" by anybody. It's simply available if you are on the network, just like a CD player is available if you are physically present inside the home, and are just a guest.

You can have 2 phones with 2 separate Qobuz accounts on the same network, and each can decide to play on any of the available Chromecast/WiiM players that are discovered by the app. It only requires 2 Qobuz logins, one for each phone, regardless of how many streaming devices there are. That is the way it should be.

Requiring a separate Qobuz connect account just to fetch Qobuz service credentials really doesn't solve anything, you still have to enter some credentials in the first place, to fetch the other credentals. It's just pointless. It can make sense if you are saving multiple sets of credentials, say, for 3-4 unrelated music services, but not just one set.

The music service credentials do not have to persist within each streaming device. They do in some casse, like the SiriusXM and other service credentials (not including Qobuz) in my Marantz receivers. This is typically only controlled locally from an IR remote, though. It's not designed as a streamer like the WiiM is. Those receivers do offer Airplay & DLNA protocols for streaming, though, but they don't need credentials in those cases.

Ultimately you can store them either on the controller (smartphone) or on the playback device (streamer). Sometimes those are the same (smartphone built-in speaker, AVR) But many times, they are not. I don't think many people are walking around with 3 smartphones. Some have 2, one for business and personal use. But only the later will need the music service credentials.

While I'll acknowledge very few will have 70+ speakers like we do, I don't think it's exactly rare to alternate play back on at least on a few devices - AVR, TV, headphones, built-in speaker. In all these cases, it's already possible to use the smartphone as controller. So that seems the logical place to store the credentials. Especially if you consider the "mobile" part of smartphone, and that you sometimes want to play onto somebody else's system, but don't want to save your music credentials on their device, although they would likely need to share their Wifi password. A USB Ethernet NIC can work too without any credentials, but a wired smartphone is less convenient as a controller.

 

[madbrain]

The upcoming casting feature for Qobuz is called Qobuz Connect, unrelated to the Q Connect page in the app which has been a source of confusion ever since it first appeared a few years back.

Qobuz Connect compatible streamers

Besides the Google Chromecast Audio (or other Google Chromecast products), are there any stand alone streamers on the market that will connect to my Android phone using the built-in Qobuz Connect option in the native Qobuz app? I have found a list of products that work with their own apps, but...

www.avforums.com

Thanks. That is really poor marketing to use those 2 names . Would have saved me a lot of typing to know that !

Seems like the one you are referring to is about adding E2E encryption, as a substitute for DRM.

I'm not seeing how it solves or even intersects with the problem of storing credentials for each controller times each streaming device.

 

[Brantome]

As Qobuz Connect is a function of the Qobuz app, you'd only need to log in to the latter, and then you could cast to any compatible device. You wouldn't (or certainly shouldn't) need to log in on the target device unless you want to use that device's own app (in this case, the WiiM app)

 

[madbrain]

As Qobuz Connect is a function of the Qobuz app, you'd only need to log in to the latter, and then you could cast to any compatible device. You wouldn't (or certainly shouldn't) need to log in on the target device unless you want to use that device's own app (in this case, the WiiM app)

I see, so it wouldn't really differ from the existing Qobuz app, except for different, hopefully broader, device support ?

The Cast protocol is just inadequate for me due to lack of gapless support primarily. Just can't believe Google designed it without that in mind. Apple did it correctly from the ground up with Airplay. DLNA left it optional and it's a mess.

I'm not especially married to the WiiM app. My ideal is to use an app like JRiver Media Center to search for music and manage playlists. And then use an app on a mobile device to initiate playback. Most smartphone apps, including both WiiM and Qobuz, are severely deficient in their search/filtering facilities..

 

[Brantome]

I see, so it wouldn't really differ from the existing Qobuz app, except for different, hopefully broader, device support ?

The Cast protocol is just inadequate for me due to lack of gapless support primarily. Just can't believe Google designed it without that in mind. Apple did it correctly from the ground up with Airplay. DLNA left it optional and it's a mess.

I'm not especially married to the WiiM app. My ideal is to use an app like JRiver Media Center to search for music and manage playlists. And then use an app on a mobile device to initiate playback. Most smartphone apps, including both WiiM and Qobuz, are severely deficient in their search/filtering facilities..

You'd be using the same Qobuz app and choosing a target speaker, much as you'd do with Chromecast but without its drawbacks.

I think you'd get a lot of people disagreeing about Airplay btw - it's not really casting as such (other than I believe thru handoff to homepods) as the audio still comes via the cloud, thru your phone and then to the device, unlike 'proper' casting which delivers the audio direct to the end device bypassing your phone. Plus, except in specific scenarios, it's not bit perfect and in the case of its own Apple Music service can only deliver lossy AAC rather than hi res (see https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/bits-and-bytes/apple-music-lossless-mess-part-2-airplay-r1026/)

 

[Brantome]

There's a preview of the beta of Qobuz Connect in action here

Qobuz Club - Qobuz Connect Beta preview

Hi, if you’re a Qobuz user and a member of Qobuz Club, they’ve just put up a short video of their Connect beta in action, connecting from a PC to an iPad - guess they don’t want to reveal as yet which platforms they’re beta testing with, although I’m sure some of you will be able to identify...

forum.wiimhome.com