I purchased iPeng 9 (with in-app Player purchase) hoping to use my iPad Air 2 as a Roon endpoint (be able to play music from Roon on iPad). I have enabled Squeezebox support in Roon but iPad does not appear as a Roon device in Roon, nor my Roon music in iPeng. Has anybody successfully implemented this, and care to shed some light?
Related discussion: iOS device - iPhone, iPad etc. as an audio playback device
Iâve tried it about a year ago (and retried just now). iPengâs implementation does not work with Roon â but Squeezepadâs does:
While it does play audio (even when backgrounded in my short testing) â kindly note that Roon officially only supports Squeezebox hardware â not the various software implementations. Things may change over time.
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So itâs possible. Someone should contact pippin and see if he can fix/modify iPeng to work as well. Maybe heâll be able to squeeze a few more $ out of the slowly shrinking LMS user base.
Interesting. Looked at squeezepad - the description is full of irrelevant detail and not so clear for those of us who are not Squeezebox users. It seems to say I can use the squeezepad app as an endpoint, since Roon supports the protocol. Right? Anything you can add?
They also say âPlease be aware that Logitech blocks direct streaming access to MySqueezebox.com.
You will need to run a Squeezebox-Server to use the playback feature.â Is this correct, with Roon? If so, what does that entail in practice?
Nothing terribly exciting: enter âip.of.your.roonserver:9000â in Squeezepadâs server settings â thatâs all. Squeezepad will connect and present itself as a Squeeze endpoint to Roon. (Make sure Squeezebox support is toggled on in Roon Settings > Setup).
Rene, thanks! Squeezepad worked in a pinch! Iâd like to thank you also for your overly informative and civil contributions here. Cheers!
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Thanks. Didnât connect, Iâll keep investigating.
(In Settings/Audio, the Roon NUC is listed as 192.168.7.111; in Setup/General it is listed as ::ffff:192.168.7.103 which is an IPv6 representation of âŠ7.103. Donât know why it has two. But neither work.)
Assuming I get it to work, how good is this? High res support?
EDIT: Correction, one of the addresses worked. And it plays. And Roon didnât have to downres a 24/96 file. Of course the iPad DAC is not great, but Iâll try my Audeze Lightning cable-DAC.
EDIT 2: Whoo hoo! It plays in the Audeze system. Sounds great. Volume control in Roon, or the iPad hard buttons, or the buttons on the cable.
But wait, the Squeezepad drops off. Not just audio hiccups, it disappears as a device from Roon. Dang. I have had some network delays recently, may be related. Iâll investigate.
But promising. Thanks, @RBM!
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Sounds promising. Using Roon with iPeng on the iPhone with my Audeze Sine wireless in the garden. A perfect setup for the summer.
Same here, unfortunately. Squeezepad changes play mode to iPeng player after a few minutes and disappears from Roon. I suspect itâs the same time always. This, although I had deleted iPeng before installing Squeezepad. It happens even if Squeezepad is in the foreground. Further testing required, for which you seem better qualified.
Squeezepad as an endpoint working here too, on an old iPad 2 which too old to support the Roon app.
Squeezepad is working fine here on a iPad Pro, I have no iPeng and am using the iPhone Roon app. to do my choosing. If I toggle out of squeezepad it vanishes from Roon in about 30s-1minute. I also have no screensaver so it stays open at all times.
âToggle out of Squeezepadâ - yes, that may be my problem. I typically sit in Roon when listening, doing nothing or maybe thinking about what cones. Next, because thatâs where I selected the music. I certainly donât think of sitting in Squeezepad, thatâs just plumbing.
Sigh. After a long history with grown-up computers, I canât get used to primitive multi-tasking OS.
Ok, Iâll try.
I kindly received this reply straight from iPengâs Joerg Schwieder (quoted with permission):
I currently donât know how exactly Roon have implemented their Squeezebox support but it looks like they are relying on remotely configuring unconnected players which is something that is not possible with iPeng.
iPengâs player is designed to work with iPeng as a frontend so it will always connect to the same server iPeng uses and only launch when iPeng is connected, so itâs never in a âdisconnectedâ state in which Roon could take it over and remotely configure it.
Also, Roon generally doesnât officially support software players.
I can see the use case, though, and will try to evaluate with Roon whether some kind of integration would be feasible. I have a contact there but please donât expect a quick solution, this is not an easy fix.
It might fit well into some other new features the next major iPeng release is going to get but not having talked to Roon, yet, I canât really promise anything.
Actually I could imagine Roon support could be a good fit for our upcoming âaudiophileâ add-on for iPeng where we add things like direct playback up to 384 kHz sample rate and DSD playback.
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Rene,
Iâm the author of iPeng.
Whom do I need to contact at Roon to get this going.
Iâd like to be able to support Roon for iPengâs player but I think I need some help, specifically on the server discovery specification and then it would be good to have this officially endorsed.
From what I can see I need to find the Roon server and then connect to it using the SlimProto protocol like to a Squeezebox server.
I could probably find out how the discovery world from your JS API but Iâd prefer to get some official documentation. Also, it would be good to be able to negotiate player capabilities with the Roon server since iPeng supports more formats than traditional Squeezeboxes (we plan sample rates up to 384 kHz and DSD playback).
Can you help with this?
@rbm will help with the contact.
In the meantime, I have a question about the iPadâs weak multi-processing capabilities. I tried Squeezepad, and it did work with Roonâs Squeezebox support. But Squeezepad dropped off as soon as it lost focus, like when I switched to the Roon app to select music. Does Ipeng do a better job with this?
iPeng will always keep running in the background as long as you play audio.
If your iPad is connected to a power source, then iPeng can be kept running in the background, it has an option that enables this. Just donât tell Apple 
If the iPad is not connected to external power it will go to sleep, too, after 5 minutes.
Keeping an App running in the background consumes quite a bit of battery power which is why Apple doesnât allow it.
But to act as a Roon or Squeezebox player it needs to be permanently connected to the server, so would have to be running, Roon or LMS canât wake up a sleeping player.
Connected to a power source is not useful for the scenarios.
Server waking it up is not needed, Iâm sitting and holding the iPad, using the Roon app to choose music.
But if I keep the iPad from going to sleep, ipeng wonât either?
And permanently drawing power with an App in the background is a safe way to get Apple pull the feature completely.
If you want to play the player needs to be running. Canât stream to a suspended App.
Only Apps in the foreground are permanently running. All other Apps get suspended by iOS. There are a few exceptions, but they are temporary, like iPengâs 5 minute waiting period until it falls to sleep.
We have that workaround but limit it to 5 minutes if the App isnât playing and the iPad isnât connected to the power, hoping Apple will accept it this way. So far they did.
One thing iPeng can do is: it can run in split-screen mode where you can have two Apps running in the foreground but Roon doesnât support that, as far as I can see their App only supports full-screen landscape mode.
One thing Iâd need to see is whether thereâs a way to wake the App up from the Roon App or something but only relying on built-in iOS capabilities this is how things work.
HI Jörg â
Nice to see you check into our little nook. Sent you a PM!