Talk about an edge scenario! 
Your hifi is also rendered completely useless while at work maybe you should complain to the company that made those.
I have no problem using Tidal or Spotify while away from home.
And I do not believe that it is the price or missing mobile feature that keeps many people from buying Roon.
Even if the price was $2 a moth most people except us audiophiles would find Roon too expensive.
They are quite satisfied only using Spotify app and Spotify connect to a <$100 speaker.
And it is not always because they cannot afford it, they simply do not see the value.
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I fixed that issue, I retired !!
But seriously when I worked , it was open plan and noisy, so I used an iPod with Sennheiser noise cancelling phones.
How much of your library do you need?, I have 30 versions of some Beethoven sonatas but one or two will do.
an iPhone , Audioquest Dragonfly Red, Onkyo hf player is a pretty good substitute. 100 g of flac files covers 300 or so Albums, just be selective.
Is it really such a loss to have access to my 120 k tracks ?
Mike
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Pretty much Agree with you mate, iām on trial but wonāt be replacing PLEX as the advantages of roon donāt outweigh itās obvious disadvantagesā¦ ESPECIALLY mobile streaming remotely.
Iād pay monthly with an eye to āever improvementā but upfront yearly is just a bad cost model and stops people bothering to pay like me.
I think the devs & owners on this product operate with quite an old mindset to software development, itās not like a startup in silicon valley that takes off rapidly supports everything then gets rich later, they seem to be conservative and trickle feed - Unfortunately this is a subpar experience to the younger crowd who are used to that and just wonāt bother buying 12 months upfrontā¦
Past year, I downloaded the trial version of Roon. After the trial period I purchased a Lifetime Membership license. This piece of software was perfect for my needs and tastes.
I found it very flexible, easy to install, upgrade and migrate. Also, the project is alive and new features are added over time.
Itās nice for me.
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Different folks, different strokes. No need to start slamming something just because itās not for you. Personally, Roon fills my modest requirements perfectly. I donāt need or desire feature bloat with things I wonāt use, so Iām glad the Roon team is staying focused.
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I absolutely loved my trial of Roon. It is a clear leader in SQ, connectivity, UI, library management/suggestions etc. and worth every cent for audiophiles - BUT for my purposes itās lacking in several areas of functionality i.e. an āAUX-INā for basic Spotify functionality and better Internet Radio functionality. Spotify I believe is the largest streaming service if iām not mistaken, with 83MIO subscribers who would not benefit from Roon, because their needs are met by mobile phones and Spotify connect endpoints.
If iām listening in āzonesā through the house with friends and family they donāt care about SQ and it becomes secondary to functionality e.g. when I had Roon installed my wife listened to Spotify on her phone speaker! There are examples out there of basic Spotify integration e.g. Logitech Media Server, Algoriddim DJ Pro. If we are being told we canāt do Spotify because they wont allow it, truth is its not a priority. There are so many talented people out there developing low cost hw and sw audio for next to nothing that threaten any paid platform that doesnāt adapt and address whats most wanted in the marketplace.
I do expect Roon to grow and succeed if they prioritize ācivilianā end user functionalty and still cater to the cult members that value SQ above all else.
For now Im sticking with Logitech/Squeezebox media server which leverages a myriad of easily configured 3rd party plugāins and apps for listening around the house with friends and family. If I want to JO about SQ , I listen on a dedicated stereo setup that frankly my friends and family donāt care about.
The non tie-up with Spotify has nothing to do with sound quality. Itās because Roon donāt want implement Spotify Connect as it underminesthe core USP of Roon which is deep metadata integration.
There is a separate debate to be had as to whether Roon should do it anyway, just to have the basic pass-through functionality on the books, but itās easy to understand the reluctance given that it would instantly make the user experience a 2-tier affair, with some tracks and albums showing reviews/bios and others not.
But thereās another argument to say this already happens to an extent with radio url passs-through - thereās no metadata being leveraged there either.
So itās a strategic decision, but itās nothing to do with SQ.
Although a lot of audio ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā has leaked on to the Roon forums, there are a lot of members, including myself, that purchased Roon for itās USP - that of deep metadata integration. Of course I wouldnāt have invested if Roon didnāt offer the standard of bit-perfect transmission to the end-points, but I consider that a minimum basic feature. Like you I was a long time LMS user and since LMS also offered bit-perfect transmission I wouldnāt have moved otherwise.
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Sorry, I donāt understand this comment. What else is there besides SQ?
Might as well stream thru your Alexa device, if thatās the way you feel.
sorry when I say cult member I mean an audiophile and a civilian = non-audiophile!
agreed - I didnāt realize that the metadata is main the value proposition of Roon and what a remarkable job they have done with limited resources. I donāt know their business goals however if they opened up the platform more to third parties who can deploy and develop on it, that would give a wider reach and in turn allow for more development resource. Killer functionality and innovation can come from anywhere. Take the ipeng remote that combines multiple proprietary and open āelementaā into one UI and costs $9.99. My friends and family are happy enough with that (again we are tied to Spotify) and I think for Roon to grow they need to be somewhere between a luxury and mass market platform.
Roon provide a lot more beyond bit perfect endpoints e.g. PEQ and Convolusion. Roon is predominately used by Audiophiles and its universe is around high end gear. It needs a wider audience IMHO and has a opportunity to build on what is already a killer platform.
Iām definitely not an audiophile. 
Another non-audiophile here. As I read this thread I saw several references to Spotify integration with several different opinions on why it has not happened. Having no inside information about why I turned to Google search and ended up on the Spotify for Developers page which has this to say about Playback options for developers:
Playback 
Bring music from Spotify to your application
We offer multiple, fully featured playback solutions depending on your needs
- Play music directly in the web browser, with the Web Playback SDK
- Use Spotify Connect to control and transfer playback between any of a userās active devices seamlessly.
- With just a few lines of code, embed play widgets with Spotifyās look and feel
I may not be reading it correctly but it looks to me like Spotify might not allow the seamless integration that Tidal does.
I also found this from September of 2017 at https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/spotify-app-integrations/ regarding Spotifyās removal of features:
One of the feature removals which has garnered most ire was the companyās decision to kill third-party apps in 2014. At a stroke, users lost the ability to get curated recommendations from record labels and magazines, find nearby concerts, give guests āparty accessā to accounts, and a whole lot more.
Spotify has never truly managed to replace the lost apps, even though some third-party web apps can still use the API.
Maybe Spotify does not want an app like Roon having free rein to use their data.
Tim
My commute is from my bed to my desk, via the coffee machine. I have Roon with me every inch of the way! 
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Is your coffee machine Roon ready???
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Now thats a great ideaā¦ 
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