I was excited for ARC, but didnt plan on using it often. It quickly became my primary source of music when I am out of the house. I like that the recently added/played music updates at home while I am on the road.
I have had a near perfect experience with Arc. That said, I had to set up port forwards in both my unifi network console and within my broadband modem in order to get it to connect. Since then I have had a constant and flawless connection. However, I could see how someone who doesnt have access to that level of networking detail could struggle with setting up a connection.
As for the battery issues; I am an apple guy who is forced to use an Android by my employer. I havenāt noticed any major battery usage, but if I did i wouldnt complain about it. It should probably be expected.
When Roon launched ARC they seemed to provide quite a bit of self-help documentation and seemed eager to help when called upon. Have all of you with issues reached out to them?
For music in my car I use ARC almost exclusively. It doesnāt display art reliably and I occasionally have to reset ARC on my phone to get Carplay to work well, but it always plays music (at least around town). I have a few long distance trips planned this summer so weāll see how well it works in the great American west.
I suffer the occasional dropout on a cross-Pennine road I use frequently, but thatās due to non-existent phone signal. Itās usually fine on stretches of road where the signal is weak.
Battery-wise I never have any issues as my phone is always plugged in while Iām using it in the car.
The CarPlay interface isnāt great, but CarPlay is pretty rubbish anyway in my experience; surprisingly so for an Apple product. How much blame should be apportioned between Roon, Apple and the car manufacturer (Merc in my case) is anyoneās guess.
My personally does not work. even i see status green for ARC in ROON core. ARC app complains āPoor Connectionā. At this point I think home internet Upload speed is the key to use ARC.
I went on a road trip last month from Northern CA to Phoenix, AZ and ARC worked very, very well overall. I have many .dsf and 24/192 files. Those were the only ones to really hiccup when cell coverage was limited. 16/44.1 worked great most of the way but there are dead zones, especially near the CA/AZ border where nothing works obviously.
One thing Iāve noticed on my daily commute while in heavy traffic, I will get a fair amount of buffering. I assume itās from all the interference of other cell phones and/or load on the local cell tower. Otherwise, Iām loving ARC. I use a phone DAC (iBasso DC-06) with aux input into the carās stereo.
ARC over CarPlay works great.
But after I have put the car away in the garage and gone into the house, I have to open the garage door again and go back out there to retrieve the phone that I left in the armrest, plugged into USB.
Every time.
If I have to buy a more modern car with wireless CarPlay, thatāll be a high cost for music.
Most of the time it doesnāt work. Downloaded my favorite albums, they wonāt play without (short) connection to the server. When informer to connect briefly before I take a flight: forget it. No music. Playing music in my car? Nope. Tried VPN to my house as well, nothing happens. When I get home: everything works (but I donāt need ARC at home). Like more people said: Plexamp works like a charm when Iām away.
I created a playlist on my Mac on Saturday which has yet to appear in ARC. Now I know I can do a reset and it will āprobablyā appear but I shouldnāt have to do that. I have a very simple set up, core on the Mac and music as well, wired to router, gigabit internet. Only zone regularly use is and Apple pod. If I create a playlist in Apple Music on my desktop it almost immediately appears on my phone.
It would be helpful if ARC had a more informative diagnostic with respect to core connection failures. Alternatively a standalone tool or companion to ARC that analyzes the connection to the core (or the reason the connection fails) with enough information to understand what factors are likely to be the issue. Especially for those of us with recurrent connection problems. Maybe there is something I can change in my home network environment to improve ARCās success rate. As it stands all I can do is complain on this topic. Give me more information and Iāll take it from there.
UPDATE: Connection issues seem to have improved over the last three to four weeks. I still get virtually no album art. The navigation of my library is awkward and the touch response in Android Auto is laggy. But I can often listen to music. Itās just very hard to pick what I want to listen to. On the plus side I was recently in Israel and my rental car had Android Auto. I was able to listen to some of my library while driving around 8,000 miles from home.
Iāll repeat that I canāt fix the problems I run into because I have no idea why they are happening. When does Arc decide to give up on album art even when there is enough bandwidth to play music?
ARC is great and wonderful to have if you want to listen to music on the go which I assume most people do. Iād never buy Roon if I wasnāt able to listen outside of my home. Iāve never had any connectivity issues, my only current complaint would be that downloading songs for offline playback is really slow even while Iām at the same network as the core. Apart from that itās a smooth experience.
Arc kind of sucks, works 5% of time. No shuffle library. Can download music from native app much faster. So who needs it
Ive given up on it and just download from Qobuz or donāt even have to download to play
And every new Roon arc releases promises better but doesnāt happen
What do you mean with no shuffle library? Playlists have their own shuffle play button, tracks doesnāt but you can just turn on shuffling while a track is playing. I know there are some issues with using Arc with CG-NAT but from what Iāve briefly read they are being solved and (still?) beta tested. Personally Iām happy to not pay for Qobuz when Roon/Arc is working fine
The ARC app on my iPhone seems to work consistently well, with very few issues but the ARC CarPlay app has to be the most anger inducing, frustrating piece of software Iāve ever used.
For a while it will be fine, then I get the same recurring issues: no artwork on the Home Screen or now playing screen etc and albums not loading at all. I can start playback from my phone and it will work fine.
Sometimes I can cure the issues by deleting the ARC CarPlay app and rebooting my phone, other times the issues persist until and new update is released.
Give me more information and Iāll take it from there.