rooDial a Wireless Volume Knob for Roon with Microsoft Surface Dial

A quick follow up here: I contacted my bank to negotiate the vagaries of the conditions associated with the interest-free period of my credit card, and in the process of relating my experience they offered to refund the cash advance charges, which was a pleasant surprise. The situation is still worth being aware of – but depending on your bank, you may have some recourse in case you were caught out like me. At the end of the day, it will end up costing me an extra $10 or so in foregone interest charges rather than the $80 or so I was worried about. I do recommend that anyone who has purchased a license check how it shows up on their credit card sooner rather than later!

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In three words: Better use PayPal :innocent:

@DrCWO by way of a feature request, might it be possible to wake up the dial automatically when something starts playing in its zone, perhaps something to enable as a toggle option?

dhusky, sorry but this is technically impossible. The Dial wakes up if you press or turn and then sends the connect request to the Pi. I cannot wake it up from the Pi :cold_sweat:
So it takes normally a second to connect, not so much but is is a small gap…

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Ah, no worries, I feared that might be the case - thanks for considering!

I like to inform you of my new baby.

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@DrCWO Just to let you know the 1.4.0 package release with RooDial 1.3.2 I just installed has an issue with the extension showing a contstant L or R when the knob is not being turned. Like its remembering the last L or R action. A press with give the P then back to the usual . indicated.

Yes that is true. Isn’t it the same bahaviour as it was before? I don’t think I changed anything regaring this. Do you still have the elder version on a SD-Card to verify that?

I recall it always used to show the (.) at idle as I was checking it before I deactivated the license and moving to the new SD image. This struck me as odd immediately I activated to test the rotational ferocity

Mine also shows the last (L) or (R) position on rooDial 1.3.1, but I also remember it reverting back to the (.) when idle. Just as when you do a single click (P) now, it reverts back to (.)

I jumped from 1.1.1 to 1.3.2 so might have missed a few releases in there where it could have changed

@DrCWO

Unfortunately this hasn’t been fixed, unpredictable changes in sensitivity (rotational inertia) is still a problem. I haven’t managed to prove the cause but it may be due to connectivity between devices.
When it happens, a few degrees of rotation changes volume to maximum/minimum and is still a risk to damaging speakers. My Pi is hardwired and running RooDial 1.3.1.

Paul, please retry with 1.4.0
I got into it again and hope I finally found the issue. Since 1.4.0 I could not see this issue any more in my home.

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Is this yet another update/ release from 1.3.2 to 1.4.0 for roodial?

There is no new functionality so I kept the release number of rooDial.
Caused by the integration of the SpaceMouse some inner changes deep inside rooDial had to be made. One of them was the “blow up” issue. Test it and I hope you will get happy with it :slight_smile:

So I should redownload and flash again?

You should :+1:

While working with rooDial I liked to know which is best, Roon DSP volume, DAC volume or analog volume control.

Therefore I took measurements regarding Roon DSP volume inside the Roon Bridge.
Please see my results here:
The final truth about DSP Volume Control in Roon | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum

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Hi Carl, thanks for the information, I have installed 1.4.0 and will observe for a week or two.

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Hi , I am having trouble getting the Surface Dial to pair with my RPI. The RPI is a new Pi 4 Model B - 2GB RAM, with an ethernet connection and a 4 GB micro SD card, and is showing up with the 3 extensions correctly in Roon. RooDial is shown as 1.3.2 and all the settings options seem to work including being able to enter the licence number. The UPnP extension is also discovering my other UPnP devices so it looks as though the RPI is working properly. The Surface Dial is brand new and seems to be in an effective pairing mode when the white light is flashing as it shows up as ready to be paired in the Bluetooth settings on my tablet or phone.

The problem is the Surface Dial never pairs with the RPI , and just keeps flashing . I have turned Bluetooth off in all nearby devices but in any event none of them are in pairing mode so that shouldn’t be an issue.

Any ideas on what the problem might be ? I am very keen to get this working as I have just swapped out my Devialet amp which also has a elegant wireless volume control knob and I’d love to get back to that style again.