rooDial a Wireless Volume Knob for Roon with Microsoft Surface Dial

Audio Gear Talk rooExtend
1125

I have been trying to get my hands on a RP Zero W for months without success (I live in Spain). This week I finally bought a RP4 to use as a Roon endpoint (and a pico W just because).

I have some probably silly questions: can I use the RP4 to run a roon endpoint and rooDial at the same time? Can I run rooDial on the pico w? Can I buy a RP Zero W somewhere in Europe?

Thanks and happy new year!

1126

  • Yes you can run Roon bridge and rooDial in parallel. Also all my other Roon Extensions can be used in parallel.

  • Pico w is not supported as it is not able to run Linux.

  • I have some brand new Raspberry Zero W lying around here and can ship international. If you are interested send me a PM with your offer. You can also get the rooExtend-Box. It is available.

Best DrCWO

1127

Excellent! So, from what I understood I should buy and download Roodial and after it install Roon bridge on the Linux distro it comes in?

1128

Five easy steps:

  1. Buy a license for RooDial
  2. Download the RooExtend image and flash to SD-card
  3. Boot up your Pi
  4. Enter RooDial license code in RooExtend License Manager (found in Roon Settings > Extensions) and pair your Surface Dial
  5. Select Roon Bridge under Enable Network Audio:

Screenshot 2022-12-31 at 13.05.18
Screenshot 2022-12-31 at 13.05.182884Ɨ2062 402 KB

3 Likes
1129

Hey @DrCWO ā€“ Any progress on the slow reconnects of the Dial with 3.0.x? (2.3.3 runs fine for now ā€“ just wondering if it is OK yet to return to version 3).

1130

I checked that but I have no idea how I could improve reconnection speed. It seems to be the Bluetooth daemon, one of the Linux components. It is a newer release than the one I used before.

My plan is to release a big service update in spring and close all the open topics I have in my list. For rooDial I will implement a new way to access the data from the Dial that can be done with the new Bluetooth daemon only and which might offer a quicker reconnection. Also I will implement a second layer of gestures. You will be able to switch between the layers with a long press gesture. There will be a haptic feedback to reflect the layer state. Also the Radio station and playlist things we already have on rooNuimo and roo6D will be included in this release.

Best DrCWO

1 Like
1131

Thanksā€˜ for your support work :grinning: :+1:

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1132

Thanks ā€“ Iā€™ll keep from updating until spring then. Is 2.3.2 the lastest stable 2.3 version ā€“ or is it OK te keep running 2.3.3b5?

The new features sound exiting. Not too sure about long press as switching gesture ā€“ it is how I turn off my system. (Iā€™ve got two Dials connected to my KEF LS50 WII zone ā€“ RooDial volume control works for any source playing: TV, Airplay, Spotify, Roon, etc. Single press is mute, long press is off. My wife says she loves you. ;-)).

Have a good switchover ā€“ see you next year!

1133

Perfecto! Will do it as soon as my PI4 arrives :slight_smile:

1134

Apparently, @RBM and I have several things in common:

  • We are both staying on 2.3 for the moment for the reasons we all understand

  • We each have a KEF LS 50 WII zone with two rooDials

  • We each have a spouse who has strong positive feelings for @DrCWO (though I think in my case my wife biases towards gratitude more than love, but I havenā€™t actually asked so I might be wrong) :slight_smile:

Happy New Year to you folks!

1 Like
1135

Please send greetings and all the best wishes for the new year also to you spouse :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

And I wish you all a safe journey into the year 2023.

Best DrCWO

2 Likes
1136

I asked. Maybe I shouldnā€™t have. :smiley:

2 Likes
1137

I need some help. For some reason my Rpi that runs rooExtend has dropped off of my local network. It is broadcasting its SSID, and I can connect to it, but when I try to navigate to http://10.0.0.5 i get a message that Iā€™m not connected to the internet. Iā€™m running on a macbook and Iā€™ve tried with Safari, Edge, and Chrome. Same issue with all three browsers.

1138

The message is right as you arenā€˜t connected to the internet but to the rooExtend box :wink:

But you should be able to connect to http://10.0.0.5 if you enter this in the browser. If your MAC did not connect please retry on your iPhone or iPad and donā€˜t forget the ā€žhttp://ā€ž before the IP number.

Best DrCWO

1139

LOL! Just to be clear, i knew that I wasnā€™t supposed to be connected to the internet. To close the loop on the issue, I ended up re-flashing the SD card, and was able to connect, input my home network info, and get things working again. Alles gut!

1 Like
1140

Hi all,

new owner of a Surface Dial and redial license. Setup was easy and quick and everything is working as expected.
However, I have just stumbled over one strange behavior: one of my endpoints is a RPI with Ropieee installed and while I am able to decrease volume, it is not possible to increase volume again (endpoint is set to device control). The command seems to be transmitted (ā€œRā€ is displayed on the extension screen) but somehow it is not translated properly.
Just tried the same using Roon Bridge in RooExtend and everything is working as expected. So maybe this is an issue related to Ropiee. Has anyone else come across this problem?
Thanks.

1141

Often I saw that device volume is offered and did not work. Use DSP volume and you should be fine.

1 Like
1142

Thanks for the feedback. What seems strange is that device control is working using the Roon remote app ( i.e. pressing the +/- buttons), however not using the Surface Dial.

1143

This is really strange :thinking:
Would you please give me more information on what hardware is connected to the Ropieee device?

1144

Iā€™ve used it with ropieee as a display and Roodial same with ropieee display and nuimo no issues but on 2.2.x os iirc

In both cases controlled endpoint is a lumin