Wiim mini to amp as signal booster/bridge?

[eyeflyman]

Hi all!
I have a wiim amp running speakers in my backyard. The amp is located in my basement due to how the wires are run. This is apparently too far/difficult for iphone airplay to connect.
I do have excellent wifi coverage in my home and yard. The wiim amp was connected by ethernet cable on same network as wifi, but apparently this doesn’t matter for airplay or I just don’t understand the technology.

What I need is a very simple solution for my wife to play music from her phone on these speakers without going through a bunch of menus as she just won’t do that!

If I get a wiim mini, will that work automatically for my wife, as a bridge (if I set it up) to the wiim amp so that she can just open the app, select the speaker and play from her phone?

If not, does anyone have a similar situation for which they find a solution?

Thank you.

 

[Mr Ee]

play music from her phone

Can you be more specific?
Literally files on her phone?
Presumably not spotify or similar, else airplay wouldn't have been mentioned?

 

[eyeflyman]

Can you be more specific?
Literally files on her phone?
Presumably not spotify or similar, else airplay wouldn't have been mentioned?

Oh sorry, I mean streaming from her phone. She will use pandora or apple music, sometimes amazon music and connect by airplay. The problem is that the connection to the wiim amp is too far/occluded.

I know you can setup pandora and similar to stream from the amp, but I don’t seem able to control it from phone while in the back yard. I’m not sure why, as I said I have excellent wifi coverage everywhere and the amp is connected by ethernet cable and on the same network as the wifi.

 

[hoohoohoo]

Hi all!
I have a wiim amp running speakers in my backyard. The amp is located in my basement due to how the wires are run. This is apparently too far/difficult for iphone airplay to connect.
I do have excellent wifi coverage in my home and yard. The wiim amp was connected by ethernet cable on same network as wifi, but apparently this doesn’t matter for airplay or I just don’t understand the technology.

What I need is a very simple solution for my wife to play music from her phone on these speakers without going through a bunch of menus as she just won’t do that!

If I get a wiim mini, will that work automatically for my wife, as a bridge (if I set it up) to the wiim amp so that she can just open the app, select the speaker and play from her phone?

If not, does anyone have a similar situation for which they find a solution?

Thank you.

Let's take distance (and the back yard) out of the picture. Does her phone work when directly in front of the WiiM Amp?

If that's OK, can you explain a bit more about how your network is set up and what brand of WiFi devices you're using?

 

[eyeflyman]

Let's take distance (and the back yard) out of the picture. Does her phone work when directly in front of the WiiM Amp?

If that's OK, can you explain a bit more about how your network is set up and what brand of WiFi devices you're using?

Yes, phone works just fine within about 20 feet or so of the wiim.

I am running a unifi system. Dream machine pro, poe router, separate indoor (unifi U6 pro) and outdoor (unifi AP-AC-M) access point. The AP’s are hardwired so they are direct connect and not mesh. My access points have average -60dBm. The wifi SSID is connected to the same network as all my orher devices in the network.

I tried using the wiim both wirelessly and connected by the ethernet port. In both cases I could not airplay or use the wiim app on my iphone when I went outside.

I assume this suggests an issue with wifi, however I have no problem using airplay with any of the mini airpods or apple 4k tv box that are all on the same network.

 

[hoohoohoo]

Yes, phone works just fine within about 20 feet or so of the wiim.

I am running a unifi system. Dream machine pro, poe router, separate indoor (unifi U6 pro) and outdoor (unifi AP-AC-M) access point. The AP’s are hardwired so they are direct connect and not mesh. My access points have average -60dBm. The wifi SSID is connected to the same network as all my orher devices in the network.

I tried using the wiim both wirelessly and connected by the ethernet port. In both cases I could not airplay or use the wiim app on my iphone when I went outside.

I assume this suggests an issue with wifi, however I have no problem using airplay with any of the mini airpods or apple 4k tv box that are all on the same network.

Good...so software functions between wired and at least one wireless subnet.

Next round of questions.

Do the U6 Pro and AP-AC-M present the same IP subnet? Asking since it's problematic for other protocols (UPNP, DLNA) when they have to span subnets. Solutions here are usually to turn on Layer2 bridging or to use a common VLAN and single subnet.

Also, do you have any device isolation turned on? People have been posting about issues here too with the fix being to turn off device isolation.

 

[FreakyKiwi]

Yes, phone works just fine within about 20 feet or so of the wiim.

I am running a unifi system. Dream machine pro, poe router, separate indoor (unifi U6 pro) and outdoor (unifi AP-AC-M) access point. The AP’s are hardwired so they are direct connect and not mesh. My access points have average -60dBm. The wifi SSID is connected to the same network as all my orher devices in the network.

I tried using the wiim both wirelessly and connected by the ethernet port. In both cases I could not airplay or use the wiim app on my iphone when I went outside.

I assume this suggests an issue with wifi, however I have no problem using airplay with any of the mini airpods or apple 4k tv box that are all on the same network.

Can you airplay to the homepod or apple tv from the yard?

 

[D1N0]

Airplay is using the Phone to stream to the WIIM so it needs to have a good connection all the time. This is different with the WIIM Home app or Chromecast, where the phone just needs to tell the streamer what file to play. So maybe your wife could use chromecast or the home app instead of airplay.

 

[FreakyKiwi]

I don't use Apple Aiplay so can't confirm but I'm fairly certain that Airplay will use an existing WiFi network if present rather than WiFi Direct.

AirPlay - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

AirPlay and AirTunes work over a local network, through either Wi-Fi or Ethernet. Originally, devices had to be connected to the same network, but since late 2017 devices can opt to use Wi-Fi Direct allowing devices to connect without a LAN.

 

[eyeflyman]

Good...so software functions between wired and at least one wireless subnet.

Next round of questions.

Do the U6 Pro and AP-AC-M present the same IP subnet? Asking since it's problematic for other protocols (UPNP, DLNA) when they have to span subnets. Solutions here are usually to turn on Layer2 bridging or to use a common VLAN and single subnet.

Also, do you have any device isolation turned on? People have been posting about issues here too with the fix being to turn off device isolation.

Not sure how I missed it, but thanks to your asking about the subnet I double checked and... somehow I or software bug moved my AP over to a VLAN it didn't belong on!

So now it is working, thank you very much!

 

[hoohoohoo]

Not sure how I missed it, but thanks to your asking about the subnet I double checked and... somehow I or software bug moved my AP over to a VLAN it didn't belong on!

So now it is working, thank you very much!

Glad you were able to fix things. Now go be a hero with your wife