Roon acquired by Harman International [Feedback]

[Formula]

Onwards to the future! Used to sell Harman products (their home cinema systems). Good news for the Lifetime subscriptions. I hope it remains true.

[peter_richardson]

Congratulations to the team at ROON.

I look forward to hearing what’s next and seeing what’s possible …

[peter_richardson]

Good to hear!

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

Time flies, it’s April already.

Well, congrats, and I hope this is what you wanted and is good for Roon and its users. Exciting times.

[Bill_Janssen (Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)]

Congratulations!

[Jim_F]

Congratulations to Roon owners and employees.

HARMAN International

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

@Jim_F

And, with more financial backing, I would think customer support will have the resources they need

The one thing that made me think “wait, what?”

@enno

Our customer success and support services will continue to operate as they do today.

[hashkey]

I’ve always been aware Roon could be bought out, but Samsung is a bit of a surprise…

[peter_richardson]

Smart things - Samsung. Hubitat …

Slimdevices - Logitech. Open source…

ROON -Harman (Samsung) ……?

[OffRode (new user)]

@Darko

Aligned with its ‘work with all’ strategy, HARMAN is committed to growing Roon’s open device ecosystem which includes collaborating with more than 160 other audio brands, delivering audio to more than 1000 high-performance devices. Roon’s dedication to its loyal community and its exceptional UI/UX design expertise will continue to expand and flourish with the acquisition.

160 brands super happy to embrace Samsung/Harman?

This should be really interesting as soon as the lawyers get involved. Here nor there, wait and see. Many other ways to listen to music these days.

[David_Weinberg]

Congratulations to the Roon Team and, by extension, all of us as Roon users!

I’ve always admired the Harmon brand and very glad that there is a buffer for Roon between Harmon and Samsung (I’m less enamored with Samsung’s customer service).

I believe that Roon Labs is secure within the Harmon group, and that’s good news!

[simon_pepper]

Congratulations on getting the deal done.

I do hope Roon, the team and the vision & ethos will be left to exist within the larger Harman organisation.

[OffRode (new user)]

If you are at all familiar with acquisitions you should know that the acquired company typically undergoes a major restructuring. Time will tell, membership is not ownership thus no vote is required from members.

[spockfish (Harry ten Berge)]

Congrats @danny, @enno and the rest of the Roon team.

I know how hard you worked your a** off to build this gamechanging product (I still remember me being depressed when Logitech killed the Slimdevices and my joy when I found Roon )

Looking forward to the future!

Best regards,
Harry

[mvrlogins (Mehul)]

Interesting news and congratulations to the Roon team.

My main concern going forward will be with how Roon treats customer privacy and user data.

Will we now have a system where data on our listening habits (as is viewing data on Samsung TVs) is sent back to Samsung for their usage? I’m sure it would be quite valuable to them.

[therourke]

If growth is what this move represents, then Harman are going to expect something in the way of profit in the short to mid term, and selling user data is one way to achieve that.

The post doesn’t mention user data or privacy concerns, but it’s the first thing that comes to mind for me. And it’s a worrying oversight in this post.

Here’s hoping that Roon can avoid becoming the victim of major restructures, user sell off, or even being stripped into assets. This is what happens to the vast majority of startups.

I believe that Roon can grow and continue to represent its smallish user base. Some indication of how you plan to do that would be reassuring. As a lifetime sub, I remain optimistic. I really want to be still using Roon 5 or even 10 years from now, when the music streaming industry is likely to be vastly different. I hope Harman can help and not hinder Roon getting there.

Good luck going forwards.

[Johnny_Ooooops (Listener in Chief)]

Congrats team - I’m sure it’ll be a lot of work to embed everything. I really hope this makes the product take wings even more. It’s truly been transformative to how I listen to music, and I’ve “already gotten my money’s worth” out of my lifetime sub, but I hope that it just keeps getting better.

Good luck all!

[Pogorowitz (Danny B.)]

Congrats, Roon!

I hope this means you’ll have more resources to keep advancing your vision for Roon (and Roon Arc…please). Less buggy software and more support staff would be awesome…too.

[Thomas_Becker (Staatskapelle)]

This was inevitable and I hope Roon’s founders are rewarded for the years of work on a remarkable product we all love.

I assume, within a few quarters, lifetime subscribers will need to start paying a monthly fee for some features which is probably okay. I just hope these “value add fees” for lifetime subs are reasonable and don’t suffer from scope creep.

@mvrlogins I also have real concerns regarding data.

[Pogorowitz (Danny B.)]

@therourke

Here’s hoping that Roon can avoid becoming the victim of major restructures, user sell off, or even being stripped into assets. This is what happens to the vast majority of startups.

Like with what Apple did the acquisition of Primephonic. Apple Music Classical is a pale shadow of Primephonic.