Please forgive me in advance for adding yet more one more topic to this discussion of mobile / remote access to Roon.
As I am growing more and more frustrated with the litany of solutions I must employ to enjoy my music in the way that I want to enjoy my music outside my home (Plex, Jriver, Tidal, Qobuz) all to do what ROON does at home) I decided today to have a go at connecting to my ROON ROCK NUC at home from outside the network at my shop. I’ve never really tried before and just wanted to see what would happen.
I installed a ROON Remote on my Mac Pro and as expected when it tried to scan for the core it could not find one. I clicked the “help” text and saw a screen for manually adding an IP address. I have a static IP address at home and have added port forwarding in the past for the ROCK as I had connection issues with the core over wifi from mobile devices in the past. As soon as I added the IP address for my home the Roon Remote on my Mac Pro found the Roon core and displayed everything beautifully. It was a bit of a “WOW” moment for me as I did not expect that to happen.
I went to try the same thing with my iPhone. At first, it detected Roon on the Mac Pro as they are of course on the same network at my shop. So I quit Roon on the Mac Pro and was then able to also manually specify the static IP address of the Roon Core at home. That connected instantly as well. Huzzah!
However, when I go to select an Audio Zone to play to, I can only see the devices on my home network. Hmmm. The dog will be thrilled.
Now I need suggestions. How do I add / create an Audio Zone at my shop that connects to the ROON ROCK NUC at home?
I have not tried this, just brainstorming here…
What if you set your shop network up the same way, with a static IP and port forwarding on the Mac Pro. Then connect a DAC system or endpoint by USB and then you may be able to set up an audio zone, and the two communicate back and forth by the static IPs and port forwarding?
Hi @Techru. Thank for the idea. I did as you suggested but Roon Remote with Core at home does not see Roon Remote at work. So Mac Pro at work is not an Audio Zone - yet! I’ll leave the port forwarding on though as I think it could be useful.
In “Roon Remote” -> “Setup” on home machine there is a place to add an ip address for a HQ Player. Might it be possible to add the ip address for a HQ Player running at my shop (if I were to get one)?
Copied the config files obtained from Netgear Orbi, copied them to the profile folder.
Imported the opvn file into OpenVPN, then connected. At this point disconnect, then renamed the network adapter to NETGEAR-VPN
Open the network adapter NETGEAR-VPN and set the address to static, same range as my internal home network. 192.168.1.x
Conected to VPN using OpenVPN,
Roon now thinks it is on the same home network, I opened it, set my audio output to my laptop and started playing music.
I have access to Internet, my home network, and Roon. I am happy with this solution at the moment. To get it working on my phone, I am going to install the software called connectify which will make my remote laptop a router, then sync my phone to it to share the VPN connection on the same subnet. I use a spare. Not a beautiful way to do this, but it works, would be nice if this was built into the app itself.
My configuration sounds a bit different than yours.
My Roon Core is a Roon ROCK NUC.
Modem/Router - Netgear v7610 (Telstra branded modem/router in Australia). It doesn’t have OpenVPN capabilities. I have been keen on Orbi though and this tips the scales even furthur to getting one.
In house I connect to the Roon ROCK Core via Orchard Audio Pecan Pi streamer, Mac, iPhone, iPad, no windows machines.
At work I have a MacBook Pro and an iPhone that I would like to remotely connect to my home network.
I may look equivalents to your configuration but I just want to ask…
You mention a laptop in your process. Does that laptop stay at home running 24/7 or is that what you use outside the network, from the office, to connect remotely?
Does the Roon Core and the VPN have to be on the SAME machine/device? I’m thinking maybe “No” because you setup OpenVPN on the modem/router? Edit I just watched a video on setting up OpenVPN on an Orbi and OpenVPN on a mobile client machine, so it looks like, no, the Roon Core and the VPN only need be on the same network, not the same machine.
Are you happy with the performance over the VPN? Is it glitch at all?
I run a pfSense firewall which has OpenVPN server embedded but unfortunately the clients that connect to the network from outside, will get an IP of a different sub net thus it will not work.
How did you manage to get addresses from the same subnet for your clients?
I had the same issue at first. I went into “Change Adapter Settings” in Windows 10 and manually set a static IP address for the VPN adapter. I set it for my home settings. I was surprised it worked, but it worked. Have access to Internet and access to my roon server.
I will have to try that as soon as possible despite my main laptop is running Linux. I have another laptop running windows though so I will have to investigate.
So to understand, you modified under network settings the VPN adapter and gave it a random 192.168.1.X address. Then you connected to your home network from a remote location and you were able to find Roon Core?
I have set the port forwarding（UDP9003，TCP9100-9200）, but according to your practice, Roon remote can’t find the core. Could you tell me your setting method in detail (including the forwarding port and how to fill in the IP address in Roon remote)，thanks！
For some context: I used to swear by iTunes given its relatively strength as storage software and reasonably good playback system. Since I have an absurd amount of music and frequently want a quick means of transferring mp3s to my iPhone, iTunes formerly met my needs effectively. However, the rise of its irksome syncing requirements and brash, exclusive incompatibility of its audio file formats pushed me away from it.
Simultaneously, I also started becoming more of an audiophile myself, getting heavily into customizable parametric EQ settings and aggregated output combinations, largely for use in my own music-making. This was when I found Roon (or perhaps I should say Roon found me?).
Despite its faults, I find Roon to be an unparalleled brand that any true audiophile should at least have on his/her radar. Its storage and scanning features have left some things to be desired, but it’s customizability (particularly in terms of sound) is as advertised and its algorithms for introducing music to me have been stunningly impressive.
I initially tried using Splashtop Streamer to stream my iMac Pro (which is my Roon core) to other devices. As long as the audio was set to iMac playback, this allowed me to listen through my iPhone anywhere with internet access. But this was a stupidly pricy workaround given how tedious its functionality was. So I scrapped Splashtop and for about the same price ended up getting subscriptions to both VOX and Tidal, which in tandem with Roon on my home system is an high-budget yet optimally user-friendly and customizable set-up that affords the option of great parametric EQ settings at home or on the go, as well as lossless playback on a variety of speakers/headphones I use. One noteworthy detail to add is that I prefer to access my mobile device library offline because I listen to it on underground transportation daily.
The Roon/Vox & Tidal compromise is far from a perfect set-up (did I mention also having to use Waltr2 to transfer mp3s onto my phone?) and costs me more than a reasonable person should even consider. Yet I find it far more tolerable than paying pennies on the dollar for iTunes’ craptastic business practices or any overly-complex means of accessing a sad and low-functioning iteration of Roon for remote use.
I yearn for the day when Roon introduces remote listening options, and I am cautiously optimistic that we will see this by the time version 2.0 comes out. But until then, I wouldn’t recommend trying to fit such a nifty gem through any rusty keyholes.
An aside for any Roon personnel here: I hope that you realize how much more business you will have when you introduce a remote option. People who already love Roon will happily pay whatever steep price you charge for this, and many others will be tipped into the sea of emptying their wallets for you. I don’t understand why this is taking so long, but I urge you to expedite the initial process and then make oodles of improvements over time.
You can always try and setup remote VPN access and there are threads here from people who have done so. But, that is Tinkering and not a supported Roon environment.
Roon is, as mentioned, built to be used in a single sub-net local network.
Roon is working on a mobile solution. However, what that means is has not been communicated. Mobile solutions can be different, and mean different things to different people. For example, mobile, to me, means my phone IS the core. I have no use for nor desire to remote into my home.
What I really would like to see is, syncing/streaming between Cores. For Instance instead of adding a Qobuz or Tidal Account I would like to add another Roon Core. The Library is shared, functionality is the same as with other Streaming-Services.
When you use roon on a different network it makes no sense, to have synced-playback. When you can’t have one network it normally means, you are a little bit too far away to hear synced music anyway! So this makes it a lot easier, as no realtime data is required. Just the source-files that could be pre-loaded and decoded on the remote Core and transferred with http(s) or so. So network protocol can be a lot simpler and no requirement for raat is given.
The main disadvantage is, you have to pay for two Cores though… But it would allow me to have a main Roon-Setup with a lot of storage for my music. And when in holidays, I still can listen to the music with a separate core.