Oh yeah, I agree with you, I want that too. I already had one around the house, and was pretty happy about figuring it out, but yeah built in would be better for sure.
Why is all this nonsense necessary? Roon ought to be an āaudiophileā product. Just buy what is supported (and this is more than enough) and donāt ask them to support every sh*itty protocol and speaker out there.
There is so much more useful that they could implement.
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partly because a lot of us have Echo speakers around the house already, and maintaining redundant playback systems is a bit of a pain. it would be nice to be able to integrate the two, for whole house/background listening.
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Roon is missing fundamental features and not a short hardware compatibility list.
And I mean features limiting functionality. Your case would be solved with spending a couple dollars on other speakers. LoL
Please keep Alexa and Siri and any other soothing voiced bots away from my hifi!
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I have great speakers, in a treated dedicated stereo room. I also have 12 Echos around my home and it is fun to pick something on roon and have it play every ware in sync. Echo speakers are not the best, but having them play in all the major rooms in my house at the same time and right volume for the room itās in. Is a pretty great way to listen to music too.
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Yes, Iād like this too. I have really nice things in a few rooms of the house, but why not be able to get music in every room (that has an Alexa in it)?
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I have an Echo Link Amp inside the house wired to the speakers on my hot tub out back, and I got it specifically to stream music to outside. I hadnāt thought of hooking up a streamer to the Echo Link. What a great idea? Like you, I have Amazon Echo devices all over the house.
Now Iām going to have to figure out how to use the app to redirect an input on the Echo device to a speaker group 
.
BTW, you made my day. I love learning new things.
Hi,
is there any update here? or its still not possible and alexa cast is not implementedā¦?
thanks
Now that RoonARC is here it would be great to have a RoonARC skill on Alexa.
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Whatever about RoonARC, how about just for Roon. Every reason given in the past for not doing so was just an excuse - itās been done for LMS and works well, itās the primary missing feature in Roon.
Honestly I couldnāt agree more. I just figured RoonARC might offer new architecture to surmount whatever issues might exist.
And for me personally I am a heavy Alexa user (Iām disabled so being able to operate lights, curtains, etc by voice is handy) and controlling Roon would be nice, but I really long to add Alexa devices to a Roon group since I have a Roon capable streamer in my HiFi but for casual listening Iād love to stream Roon content around my house to my Alexa devices (including Echo Inputs- R.I.P. - connected to decent amps/speakers).
So I see two aspects of Roon integration: voice control and music playback. I figured RoonARC might be a gateway to the latter at least.
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As others have mentioned, I have a bunch of Echoās and would love to stream the tracks on my Roon core, to an Echo group. My Roon core is on a Windows PC. After reading this thread, my take away is that there is no way to use Roon to serve my tracks to Echo speakers (either with, or without Echo voice commands). If that isnāt true, please advise.
You can connect one or more Echo via Bluetooth to your Roon Core PC. This will allow you to select (in the PC) which one you want to use as the System Output which Roon recognizes. This works ok if you only have one Echo connected, but gets clumsy if you have multiple connected. I also cannot get this to work with a Speaker Group
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Thanks so much for mentioning/suggesting the āEcho Linkā. Although not a Roon solution, this (the āEcho Linkā) appears to be an alternate solution for what I was seeking. That is, to use my several Echo speakers to stream my own music to multiple rooms (for whole house background music).
For those that are interested, I found the following instructions in a Reddit post: Echo Link - Line-in multi-room
I havenāt tried this, so I have no personal knowledge of whether the instructions are complete, accurate etcā¦ So, the advice of anyone who has had positive or negative experiences with the āEcho Linkā and streaming their own tracks to multi-room Echo speakers, please advise accordinglyā¦Thanks!
Reddit Excerpt Quoted as Follows:
It is supported but thereās a lot of ambiguity on how exactly it works. I just looked at some of the US reviews and there are owners who either have set it up or donāt know how. Hereās one review that had some detailed instructions (I donāt own a Link so no idea whether theyāre right)
I bought the Echo Link because I expected that would allow me to stream from my record player to other echo devices and echo music groups, and at first I couldnāt figure out how to do it. Then when I looked at the Q&As and Echo Link descriptions it sounded like that wasnāt possible. I therefore left a negative review and promptly received feedback from
Amazon describing how to do it and I can now successfully stream from my record player (Line In) to echo devices and music groups.
Here is the information they provided that allowed me to do it: You can connect your record player to the Echo Link and distribute the music to the Echos on your account using the steps below: To set up the Echo Link with line in:
1. Create a multi-room music group with your Echo Link Go to Devices> Select the + sign in the top right corner> Setup Multi-Room Music group> select the Echo Link and ALL Echos you wish to connect with. Link must be included in the group with the other Echos
2. Plug the RCA cable into the Line in ports on the back of the Echo Link.
3. Plug the other end of the cable into the record player.
4. In the Alexa app Go to Devices> Echo & Alexa> Echo Link> select Line in distribution
5. Select the new group youāve created and select done. Once completed the music playing from the device plugged into the Echo Link with play through your Multi-Room Music Group.
Also not sure if itāll work outside US.
Note: I also found this review of the Echo Link: A short film about the Amazon Echo Link
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This is now a complete reality with Roon + WiiM Pro + Echo Link. The last piece in the puzzle (for completeness) was the WiiM Pro getting Roon Ready certification. Before, it was working with with the WiiM via other means (I was using Chromecast), but now itās certified. Of course, I donāt see why this wouldnāt work with any other streamer, but the WiiM is a pretty nice piece of kit and an affordable option.
This solution requires Roon, the WiiM Pro (streamer), and the Echo Link (redistribution). As of this writing the WiiM Pro Plus is out but is not yet Roon certified (imagine it will be).
- Connect the WiiM Pro to your network to serve as your streamer.
- Connect a WiiM Pro digital out to the Echo Link which also needs to be on your network.
- Using the WiiM app, pick Devices and Audio Settings
- I personally have these set to Fixed Volume Output at 2 Vrms and 192/24 on SPDIF (optical) and havenāt noted any issues. YMMV.
- In the Alexa App create a new Speaker Group (go to the bottom of the Devices page and tap on Combine Speakers)
- Select the Echo speakers you want to use with Roon AND the Echo Link and name your group.The Link needs to be in this group or this wonāt work.
- In the Alexa App go into Devices and select the Echo Link.
- Select Line-In Distribution and pick the speaker group you just created.
- Open Roon and pick the WiiM, and set its options.
- MQA seems to be going away, but you can decide to let the WiiM handle MQA decoding or let your Roon server do it. I donāt think it much matters for what weāre doing here.
I prefer to control the volume level individually at each speaker so I set all the ins and outs to fixed across the whole chain. Just pick the WiiM as your output device in Roon and you are good to go.
Thanks to Mrmb and others above for finding this; it works great and is now a complete lossless chain until it hits your Echo speakers. The only hassle is switching which speakers you want to use, but you can always pick them all for the group and individually mute the ones you donāt feel like using at a given time.
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Hi, Guy_Finley, I just circled-back to your input and am in the process of ordering a WiiM Pro and an Echo Link.
Your instructions are precise and appreciated. Iām hoping everything is still working as described. If not, your input, or of course, otherās inputs would be more than welcomed. My guess is that there are more than a few Roon users would could also make good use of this practical feature!
in the meantime, Iām excited about being able to use Roon and my large music library in a multi-room (whole-house) Echo speaker configuration! While critically listening to highly-resolved audio in my 2-channel room is important, other times, having whole house music is equally important.
FWIW, I believe the WiiM Pro was on sale at Amazon over the past Black Friday/Cyber Monday. It no longer is. However today (11/28/2023), I found it at Crutchfield for $119 (@ the previous sale price at Amazon).
This link is to a post on the WiiM device Forum. It adds additional insight to Guy_Finleyās excellent instructions (above) regarding the setup of the following 3 devices to stream Roon to Echo Speakers:
- Roon
- WiiM
- Amazon Echo Link