As the original creator of this thread, I wanted to provide an epilog. First, I am pleased to report that V3.10.3 of BluOS seems to fully resolve all problems related to WiFi and Bluesound Node devices – this is great news for owners and anyone considering the purchase of such a device.
Having said this, allowing this basic and disabling bug to persist in the product for so long (years) has done a real disservice to all the customers who have with great exacerbation reported the problem(s) and been met with responses ranging from ‘it’s your network’ to ‘it’s Roon not us’ (or ‘it’s Bluesound not us’). The fact that a software release finally resolved all these issues highlights the mendacity of the vendor’s claims regarding the cause of the problems while illuminating both the source of the problem (the quality of the software from Bluesound) and the poor level of service we as customers have received.
While I am pleased that this has been resolved, I fear this experience has left an indelible mark on my view of the quality and testing of products coming out of Bluesound and the other Lenbrook companies that share the same Bluesound software – that’s you NAD. This wasn’t a corner case problem, it was both widely experienced and easy to reproduce.
Perhaps this experience demonstrates a fundamental weakness in the ‘Roon Ready’ certification/partnership approach embraced by Roon. While sensible, the failure to hold hardware partners to continuous account erodes faith in both Roon and the value of ‘Roon Ready.’ I would have liked to have seen Roon drop Bluesound from their list of approved HW vendors until Bluesound had resolved this priority one issue – particularly given the duration of the problem. Roon’s agreement with HW vendors should have a SLA provision that provides for this.
I’ve seen some statements from Roon that they are trying to improve when it comes to management of their hardware partners and continuous compliance with the Roon Ready program. I for one laud the intent of such an initiative and wish them all the best in doing it better in the future than has been the record heretofore.