The forum just reminded me of a thread I started in 2017 (!), which grew long with a lot of excellent contributions: Distributed, mobile, cloud: my Roon priorities 1 - 86
I recently had an experience that reminded me how this has come together in a way that truly changes my life.
We know the history: a CD library in plastic boxes is a hassle, we ripped them into a computer, but navigating the library is a hassle so we got Roon.
Roon lets me point to a musician and see what else exists, but initially that was limited to my own library. Roon opened up to cloud services, which gave me a vast library.
Then Roon built ARC with remote access to my own albums, and the cloud, and my own preferences. Then we got Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. And wireless connection, and wireless charging. And quality car sound systems.
I recently went on a long vacation trip along the beautiful coast from Seattle to San Francisco. Had Roon music the whole way, in the car and in a rented house where ARC could cast the music to the quality multi-room system.
In the old days (2017!) we could only dream of such. Now it is here. Roon contributed greatly. But it was an industry-wide evolution, with cooperation over industry-standard protocols.
What else can I dream of?