Looks fantastic
Sneak peek time!
Firmware / control devices: I’ve been playing with lots of devices especially from m5Stack. This album has some photos.
- ESP32-S3 4.2inch RLCD Development Board, 300 × 400 Resolution, Supports Wi-Fi & BLE Dual-mode Communication And AI Voice Interaction | ESP32-S3-RLCD-4.2 - this one uses an RLCD that’s on par with greyscale eInk in terms of quality but with typical LCD refresh rates.
- https://shop.m5stack.com/products/m5stack-tough-esp32-iot-development-board-kit?srsltid=AfmBOor4eEtzEPR9XuuxhQZMX1APP4SSX8VakrZoKREvjVYbcJ8pMIQL - outdoor rated. It’s become my go to when I sit on the deck (my favorite place to work)
- https://shop.m5stack.com/products/atom-joystick-with-m5atoms3 this has a ton of possibilities given the multiple joysticks.
- https://www.waveshare.com/esp32-s3-photopainter.htm gorgeous eInk color but with very slow refresh rates.
- https://shop.m5stack.com/products/m5stackchan-ai-desktop-robot-kit-with-remote-control-esp32-s3 - the robot with Kismet inspired expressions and dance moves.
I’ll have a beta firmware for each of these out this weekend (I think). I won’t move them out of beta until I get at least one other tester.
Just as exciting to me: I’ve ordered a USB-C power meter (Fnirsi Fnb-C2) and a Power Profiler Kit II in hopes of figuring out better power savings for these devices. m5Stack publishes libraries (with nifty things like sleep) for their devices so hopefully those do much better out of the box.
On the server side:
- I have HQPlayer controls implemented. For those of you who like to DSP your streams, this is hella cool.
- I’ve implemented Spotify control for Spotify Connect speaker endpoints.
- I’ve implemented Apple Music control. Apple Music requires an iOS, iPadOS or MacOS companion app allow control.
- Home Assistant - Music Assistant control is in early testing.
- All exposed via MCP for those who like to have ChatGPT or Claude up. I expect this will be huge in a few months as ChatGPT starts shipping their own hardware.
Again, only tested by me (aside from Apple Music), so I am reluctant to call anything past beta.
Let me know if you want to help me get anything across the beta-line! Spotify is especially difficult in a self-hosted environment, but I’ll work with you.
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Thank you for this very promising tool. I installed the Unified Hifi Control in a Docker container just to test the roon connetion. It is working so far. However, I think it should respect private zones and exclude them from the zones list. Or, at least, it should be configurable somehow.
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Ah, great point, I don’t use those so totally slipped my radar. Will look into making that the default.
Sounds like you’re using Unified Hifi Control but not the ESP32 Knob? What’s the use case (am just curious!)
Thanks for having a look into it.
My use case is testing before bying 
.
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Don’t see anything from Roon that specifies if a zone is private or not. Gonna look into Zone hiding on the UHC side so it works for all adapters anyway.
A mega release is in Alpha, and I could use testers.
Anyone up for testing some things?
| Area | Try | Include in the report |
|---|---|---|
| Existing Roon + Dial | Upgrade UHC; verify Roon Core authorization, zones, artwork, volume, sleep, and reconnection still work. Try hiding, renaming, and reordering zones. All new Library UI for search/browse. |
UHC version, firmware version, install method, Roon Server version |
| RLCD | Flash the RLCD Alpha, provision Wi-Fi, select zones, leave it running, and exercise sleep/wake. | Firmware version, power source, uptime, display or power symptoms |
| Frame / PhotoFrame | Flash, provision, render several kinds of artwork, and test BLE input and sleep/wake. | Firmware version, artwork examples, power behavior |
| StackChan / Kizz | Exercise now playing, motion, art mode, and recovery. | Firmware version, what Kizz did, and what you expected |
| Spotify Connect | Complete the cloud callback, discover devices, play/search/queue, restart UHC, and test again. Then control Spotify from a HiPhi controller. | UHC version, Spotify device type, sanitized error |
| Apple Music | Pair a signed iPhone or Mac companion; test suspend/resume, transport, now playing, and Apple Watch behavior. | Device/OS, companion build, whether the app was foregrounded |
| Music Assistant | Connect a normal server and exercise discovery, events, browse, queue, and grouping. | MA version, player/provider type, action and observed result |
| Home Assistant | Perform a fresh add-on install or upgrade; restart once; test entities, browse, grouping, and optional MQTT controllers. | HA version, add-on version, integration version, install/upgrade path |
Please tell me what you expected and what actually happened. Logs help after removing credentials, tokens, authorization codes, cookies, and enrollment files.
- UHC issues: GitHub issue tracker
- Firmware issues: roon-knob issue tracker
- Apple Music companion: DM me for iOS TestFlight access; the Apple Silicon Mac download is in the UHC release.
- Garmin Watch app: Control your house hi-fi from your wrist | Connect IQ Store
The knob improved because people tried it on hardware and networks other than mine, reported issues, and gave me lots of ideas. I appreciate you and any testing you can do.
Yes, still free. Donations are still welcome: buymeacoffee.com/muness.
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