rooWatch - Smart control for Roon using Apple Watch and Siri

Audio Gear Talk rooExtend
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Dear Rooners,
don’t say ‚Yet another Roon controller’. rooWatch is different and I got so much used to it that I can’t live without it any more. But let’s start at the very beginning.

In the past we (this is me and @Klaus_Engel) saw that Roon offers some basic control capabilities for the Apple Watch. This only works if the Roon App is started on your iPhone and the iPhone is close to your watch. If you walk around in your house and like to control the zone in the room, you entered this not a sufficient solution.

So we decided to build an App for the Apple Watch that is much more smart, directly connects to your WiFi and can live without any companion App on your iPhone. This is what we made, a native standalone App for the Apple Watch. It communicates with the rooWatch Roon Extension that lives within the rooExtend SD-Card image for the Raspberry and the Nuimo Hub.

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There are a lot of fantastic use cases you can cover with rooWatch. You get a full screen Cover-Art display and intuitive gestures on the Apple Watch to control Roon. Best of all: It also supports Siri in a way that allows you to control Roon by your voice via rooWatch. You can find all the features of rooWatch here on my homepage. Here you also find two tutorial videos on how to customize your Apple Watch and how to use it to achieve the best user experience with rooWatch.

It really was a lot of work to build this fantastic solution. Therefore, the price is a bit higher as, for example, a license for rooNuimo. But we guarantee it’s worth the invest and you would love rooWatch. To proof this, we offer beside a “Lifetime” and a “Per year” license also a time limited (seven days) test license for 2.90US$. With this you can explore rooWatch without the risk of big money loss.

Me and @Klaus_Engel like to thank our Beta Testers a lot for their input that helped us to improve rooWatch and make it production ready.

In this thread we like to encourage you to drop your questions and comments. Feel free to ask and tell us your success story. Me and @Klaus_Engel will be here to support you.

Best DrCWO

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I hope they (YT) don’t take down the video because of music copyrighted with playing too long with Adele. Great instructions tho…didn’t know about the long hold tap to get the other options.

Been using a week or so thru the beta period and it’s a really handy thing, but it does drain the watch if you leave it on mode and forget to kill it.

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Working fine: fast & stable – just the way I like it. Congratulations with yet another nice addition to the Rooniverse, guys!

I bought myself a new band to celebrate: :smiley:

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I can confirm as well: works fantastic! Thanks DrCWO and Klaus.

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Extremely happy user here. Purchased without hesitation. Widget and lock screen controls on an iPhone have always been high up on my wish list from Roon. This watch app solves this need and the best part is that is always on!

Thanks to @Klaus_Engel and @DrCWO for coming up with this solution.

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Thank you, that’s really great. Actually running on the ZeroW with an EthernetUSB Hub HAT. Perhaps soemtime there will be a Raspi3/4 available again.

While my RoonDial seems to be always on the wrong place :wink: the watch is always with me :slight_smile:

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I have removed the beta in TestFlight and on the Watch. I also made sure to remove the app on the Watch. That was version 1.5x so the beta.

Then I installed rooWatch via the App Store but it does not show in the Apple Watch app on my iPhone. There’s also no way I can remove the downloaded one (from the Apple store). Any clues as how to fix this?

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@M_Polak,
please take a look at my video here DrCWO - YouTube

I demonstrate how to install it on the watch.

Best DrCWO

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I have a spare Raspberry Pi 3, is a Pi 4 absolutely necessary?

.sjb

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Please look here rooExtend - Google Drive
In the Quick Installation Guide you find the supported Pi models.

The quick answer ist YES, you can use Pi 3 for rooWatch :+1:

Best DrCWO

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Can we use on of our existing RooExtend RPIs, and if so, how?

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Yes you will need to flash the latest image onto your SD card and reinstall - you will then need to but the roowatch extension and add it

Grab 2022-02-21 at 12.38.35

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This looks worthwhile, but sorry for being a thicko I just don’t understand the concept of the extension on the pi. My question is: does rooextend run on a separate pi while Roon is running on another server? Or does it only work if Roon server is running on the same pi? I have Roon Server on sonictransporter and Roon bridge on a Linn streamer.

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Hi @William,
rooExtend needs its own Raspberry Pi. it is a SD-Card-Image that - after burning it - must be inserted in a Raspberry Pi. it includes Roon bridge so you can connect a USB DAC to it.
It is independent of the machine where Roon Core lives but it need a Roon Core to make sense.
Best DrCWO

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Thanks for your quick reply @DrCWO So do I understand you correctly? I can only remotely control the music on the DAC connected to the Roon Bridge running on the Raspberry Pi with RooExtend. I cannot use RooExtend on a separate Raspberry Pi to control a streamer with a separate Roon Bridge running on the same network?

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Hi @William,
this is not correct.

With rooWatch, rooDial, rooNuimo and roo6D you can control the volume of all DACs connected to your Roon Core. The only limitation is that the DACs must offer the capability for volume control. But all DACs who’s volume can be controlled with the slider in the Roon Gui can be controlled by my Roon Extensions.

All my Roon Extensions have a zone selector to define which DAC is controlled by which of the Roon Extensions. rooWatch has this selector on the Apple Watch itself.

The Roon Bridge included in rooExtend is just an additional option to connect a DAC.

Hope this helps.
Best DrCWO

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I could be wrong but i think the question is whether the Pi with rooextend has to be connected to a DAC, which if I understand correctly it doesn’t. It can sit separately on the network not physically connected by USB to a DAC.

.sjb

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@Sloop_John_B
thank you for the clarification. All you said is absolutely correct :+1:
That’s what I wanted to say but I am German, so sorry for my long and misleading writing :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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And just to clarify your musings here that the Roon Core/Server cannot run on a RPi - it needs a full blown Intel/AMD/M1 CPU based computer

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Ah yes, thanks I should have been asking if it needs to run on the same Roon bridge. Thanks for clarifying.
Now up and running and very nice!!!

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