What I’d love to see is more remote capabilities. For DSD I get it but there’s a lot of lossless and FLAC files that don’t need the bandwidth. Bits are bits whatever anyone tells you. And I worked with the Bell Labs guys at Lucent that debunked the whole gold plated cable malarkey.
What would be cool is an ARC compatible device that will talk to a Roon Core from a different subnet. The only workaround I see is either an iPad/iPhone Airplayijg to a device or a Roon-bridge VPN’d to the same network. And opening up ARC to more devices is taking way too long if they were ever serious about doing it.
Whatever purist engineers over there are thinking I don’t know unless just to sell to a high end crowd that wants to pay $$$ for Cores and not enable more attainable devices access to the ecosystem.
Love the idea of Roon but I feel there’s a deliberate closed ecosystem design at work here.
I have moved your post to a new thread as it isn’t related to the other topic where the OP was seeking community assistance for their setup.
Futhermore, you may want to review content in the help centre as you appear not to understand how Roon works.
FWIW, Roon works with more devices than any other player, and there is no tie-in to any products. Roon will work on pretty much anything Linux, macOS or Windows, and can use DIY projects or expensive off-the-shelf components, and anything in between.
Not sure what “an ARC compatible device that will talk to a Roon Core from a different subnet” means. Sounds like ARC with a USB DAC attached, which you can already do.
Love the idea of Roon but I feel there’s a deliberate closed ecosystem design at work here.
Funny to say when Roon is the ecosystem that speaks to the most third-party devices (except DLNA) and can run the server and bridges on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
So so are saying attach a DAC to an IPhone as an elegant solution? Please point me in a direction where there is an appliance device that can connect to a Roon Core not on the same “home” subnet that is not a phone.
You explained what you meant so poorly that it was impossible to say. For a mobile solution, it would be indeed quite elegant.
Now that you say what you mean, I’m sure that there are existing feature requests you can vote for in Feedback > Feature Suggestions. Or post in Feedback to blow off steam. Those are monitored by Roon Labs. Most likely, nobody from Roon will see your rants here in the user discussion category of the forum.
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mjw
(Here I am with a brain the size of a planet and they ask me to pick up a piece of paper. Call that job satisfaction? I don't.)
6
ARC is exclusively for remotely accessing Roon using a celular network, public Wi-Fi etc..Many use a mobile device plus USB DAC when travelling.
Roon, Roon Bridge and Roon Ready devices are for directly connecting streamers, DACs, streaming amplifiers etc. to the server via Ethernet (or Wi-Fi) at home.
VLANs are not supported, but some have this working. However, this is firmly in the Tinkering categoey.
And all I suggested was the ARC evolved to allow more device types to connect from a remote subnet
Blockquote"What would be cool is an ARC compatible device that will talk to a Roon Core from a different subnet."
Blockquote
Not quite sure how much more direct and to the point you need it Suedkiez.
Blockquote Now that you say what you mean, I’m sure that there are existing feature requests you can vote for in Feedback > Feature Suggestions. Or post in Feedback to blow off steam. Those are monitored by Roon Labs. Most likely, nobody from Roon will see your rants here in the user discussion category of the forum.
Blockquote
Thanks for not answering the question because the solution doesn’t exist which was why I was asking and I was moved here just to shut me down from an engaged group.
And my original post that got moved here merely tried to point out that needed multiple cores or multiple accounts across different locations was cumbersome to users such as myself. I merely made a suggestion that obviously hit a chord that has been IMO a lacking feature of a platform that does have promise.
As is mentioned that ARC is for “exclusively for remotely accessing Roon…” so thanks for acknowledging what I pointed out is a limitation. Roon has a support gap between directly connected devices and remote devices. There are many users that don’t want to use a mobile device to connect remotely and why there isn’t more device support? You do not need to get snarky because I pointed out a gap that was clearly defined.
Thank you mjw, I think you meant to say VPNs instead of VLANS as a solution which I already mentioned is my workaround. It would be nice to have a way for an appliance (not a phone or ipad) be able to connect from a different subnet.
Now if you are defensive that there is an engineered ecosystem, I can tell you there is manipulation there or this type of feature would probably already exist.
Oh and BTW, I run product dev groups that have built over $5 billion in recurring revenue so please don’t treat my like a child.
And I even filled out the questionnaire that came out earlier this year regarding ARC features and development. This topic was ironically not included as even being explored as a future feature which again begs this is possibly a deliberate decision.
mjw
(Here I am with a brain the size of a planet and they ask me to pick up a piece of paper. Call that job satisfaction? I don't.)
9
No, I meant VLANs because you talk about subnets, which refers to the subdivision of a LAN not traffic over the Internet.
Neither I nor @Suedkiez are being defensive. It appears that you are ill informed about the way Roon and Roon ARC work, and have difficulty conveying your ideas.
Roon supports many users, the vast majority are not technology professionals. So, the decision to support some functions and not others isn’t about what is possible, but what may be practically supported.
And finally, no, your post was moved because you hijacked another thread. It is now a unique thread in the same category.
OK, grow up and spend some time finding out about Roon and how it works. If it doesn’t meet your needs that’s fine, find something that does; or given your skill levels, build something that has all the features that you require.
OK. So VPNs and VLANs are not officially supported—understood. It sounds like this functionality is still in a “tinkering” phase, meaning users are left dealing with workarounds and inherent limitations in the software.
The original thread—and my main point—was this: if a user wants to access their Roon Core remotely, it would be a significant improvement if devices other than an iPhone or iPad using ARC could do so. This is a major limitation that’s repeatedly raised in the forums. To date, Roon has not taken any visible steps to resolve it, and it increasingly feels like this gap is intentional—baked into the design of the ecosystem.
This is misleading. Two LANs in different locations—connected via routers—are still subnets. Introducing VLANs into the mix only complicated and confused the discussion further.
On the contrary, I’m well informed about how Roon functions—and definitely more informed about networking in general. Many Roon users are, in fact, very network-savvy because they have to be. If you want a single Core to work across multiple subnets (which again, means either separate physical networks or segmented VLANs), you need to engineer a workaround—because the software won’t support it natively.
Which is exactly why I made the suggestion I did:
“What would be cool is an ARC-compatible device that will talk to a Roon Core from a different subnet.”
This would allow non-technical users—the majority—to enjoy Roon from outside their home network, or across multiple homes or offices, without needing to be network engineers.
What’s frustrating is that not a single one of my positive points or constructive suggestions were acknowledged. Instead, you picked apart selective terms to argue over, while ignoring the core request—which, again, has been echoed across your forums for years.
I even said I prefer Roon over Plexamp—which, based on Roon’s own May survey, is considered your direct competitor. I said the software has potential, that ARC was a meaningful improvement, and that expanding ARC to support broader use cases could make Roon a clear winner. But none of that was addressed—just dismissed with pedantic rebuttals over subnets and vague accusations of being “ill-informed.”
And finally, from another moderator years ago:
That was two years ago. Users are still struggling with this. All I asked was whether Roon ever plans to officially support what so many users have continued to request.
Regarding the claim that my post was “hijacking” another thread: I was directly referencing the same recurring problem that the original poster and others were discussing, admittadly a little snarky but obviously feelings can be hurt here if we don’t just say that the software is perfect and operating as designed. It’s ironic that instead of addressing the substance of the feedback, the focus again shifted to procedural nitpicking about where the comment was placed. Moving it to a separate thread doesn’t change the fact that this limitation affects a large number of users and continues to go unresolved.
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mjw
(Here I am with a brain the size of a planet and they ask me to pick up a piece of paper. Call that job satisfaction? I don't.)
12
Tinkering is a place in the forum for those who choose to have unsupported configurations. For example, running Roon in a container or using VLANs. Roon doesn’t support these either. It’s not a limitation, but a choice.
Use Roon ARC for remote access as designed, or look at what others have done in Tinkering, e.g., run ARC in an emulator or sideload ARC on audio devices running Android. Contrary to what you write, the majority of users don’t consider this a limitation.
Looking at your forum stats, it’s clear you’ve spent very little time here, and don’t appear to know as much about Roon as you think you do.
That’s not what you described, and certainly not a consumer grade networking arrangement. Subnets are networks within networks, not two separate networks at different physical locations. Maybe, if you had simply said, “two locations”, you would have been understood.
Roon is a consumer product, and therefore, not designed to run on enterprise components. In contrast, VLANs are more common in home networks nowadays, albeit this is still unsupported because most Roon users wouldn’t be interested in this.
This is your opinion, yes. But, no, most Roon users do not need to be “network savvy”. And this is the point of the replies to this thread. Roon supports typical consumer home networks only, and it is not complex to set up. Anything outside the norm is for Tinkering, i.e., community support only.
I’m uncertain where you read this, but this is not a conclusion I would arrive at. Plexamp is not designed as a music player, and handles metadata poorly. Music enthusiasts are more likely to have come from another dedicated music player.
I’d agree with you here, but not as an alternative to Roon Bridge or Roon Ready devices. You are conflating two different functions of Roon. ARC is not intended for the purpose you propose.
It appears that you are thinking community moderators are the representatives of Roon. We are not. We are Roon users just like everyone else here. If you want Roon staff to read about your ideas, post in Feedback > Feature Suggestions. This was explained at the outset.
Roon’s support policy hasn’t changed. Moreover, no one is struggling with this as you suggest. The thread you posted on was not, as you say, about setting up Roon over multiple locations. It was primarily about connecting “multiple systems”, i.e., endpoints, in a single location. Using ARC at work was also discussed briefly.