Apple Watch support - Roon ARC

Hello,

Great work from Roon team with the launch of Roon ARC. It works perfectly on my iPhone and I am very pleased to experience Roon on the go.
One question: will it be soon or later an Roon ARC app for the Apple watch?

Thanks

You might ask that question here.

When I’m outdoors doing what one does outdoors, one of the ways I enjoy music is by playing tracks (from a very limited range) stored on my apple watch via my Bose sunglasses.

Roon ARC for Apple Watch would be tremendous for this (and indeed many other use cases).

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When using Roon ARC on my iPhone, I see the controls on my Apple Watch. I appreciate this is the watch being the controller for the phone, but apart from needing the phone nearby, how different is this from what you want?

Yes you’re right, but based on my experience of dedicated streaming app such as Spotify, we have access to playlists or any information on the artist (and ROON has an excellent content on artists) through their dedicated app, hence my question.

Makes sense, although even if it were possible I think I’d use my phone for anything more than basic controls.

Can I ask how you’re doing this? Nothing is showing on my Apple Watch.

I second this: I’d love to sync some songs to my Watch to listen to while going for jogs. I generally don’t want to carry my phone along when I’m jogging.

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Hello Graeme,
as soon as you open Roon ARC on your iPhone, normally you can see it on your Apple Watch through an Apple native App called in French “à l’écoute” meaning “listening”. It is automatically launched when I open Roon ARC on my iPhone.

On English language WatchOS I believe the app you are referring to is called “Now Playing” and it does indeed show what Roon on the phone is currently playing. As you say it launches automatically but sometimes if I do something else with my watch it stops. That’s how I know it’s called “Now Playing”, when I accidentally interrupted the display the first time it took me a while to work out what app I had to relaunch on my watch to get the display back.

My only frustration with the Now Playing solution is that, while I can see what Roon is currently playing, I can’t see the upcoming queue. That’s probably an Apple limitation in whatever API Apple exposes to 3rd party players but if it is possible for a 3rd party player, i.e. Roon ARC, to also expose its queue to Now Playing that would be a major enhancement for me.

So If i purchase cellular version of Apple Watch 8, I can leave my phone home and use Roon Arc with my watch ?

If the answer is no, is there any plan to develop an Arc app for Apple Watch?

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This would be great if Roon could develop a Roon ARC for Apple Watch. Being able to use it while out running would be a major plus.

Watch & AirPods only while leaving the phone behind is just the best for running. I do this now but it’s a major PITA converting FLAC to apple lossless and moving it manually to the watch just to listen to something different. If they made it so it could be either downloaded onto the watch or, via mobile data (cellular)

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I really enjoy ARC. THANK YOU ROON for delivering this! Like others I also use my Apple Watch and headphones (without phone!) when outdoors for sports, and the cellular version of the Apple Watch allows streaming, which I do using Apple Music and / or Tidal. With an ARC app dedicated for WatchOS I would finally have a single music source and app (Roon/ARC) for home, car, travel AND sports. Great if this can be incorporated at some stage. Thank you!

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That’s why I use Apple Music. It’s the music app from Apple. You can play music from your watch! Very easy.
I use Roon only in the morning at my desk. The rest of the day it’s Apple Music. Ideal for people who own an iPhone/iWatch

+1 for an Apple Watch app for Arc. I use Qobuz with Roon but on the go with just my Watch (considering a cellular one) there is no alternative for me than to use Spotify. So having this available would be fantastic and not that big of a development effort I would dare say.

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Makes sense - for your use cases. I use Roon at my desk, in the lounge, in my bedroom, bathroom, gym and home cinema, basically across my entire home. The only reason I need an Apple Music subscription is for my Apple Watch when out running, cycling, etc. without my phone. For me it’s Roon’s last blind spot, which an ARC app for WatchOS could fix.

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I know that this has been discussed before and that the Roon team does not generally provide a timeline for new features but I think it’s fair to ask if Arc Apple Watch integration is something they are at least considering.

I’m not expecting a release date or even a timeline, I just want to know if this is something Roon will eventually offer. Could somebody perhaps shed some light into this to know where we stand?

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I second what @Detlev_Hackenberg is saying.

As for now the only way to listen to music while run is to use Apple Music or some radio app.
This would be the last blind spot!

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Agree. I at day 9 of the trial, and this is the last device needed.

  • Have Cellular apple watch, and could listen to ROON remote
  • Ability to download, I can use on plane to listen to the downloaded music

I use Apple Music for both the above.

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Arc Apple Watch Cellular +1