Using a Nexus 10 as a controller

Tinkering
1

In case anyone else runs in to similar troubles…

So, I’ve been using a Nexus 10 in a fixed location to control Roon for some time. At the same time as Roon 1.5 came out, I also changed a bunch of stuff with my network and WiFi and it has taken quite a while to work out why the Nexus would disconnect from my core, seemingly at will. In the process I even went as far as installing a Custom ROM to pin down the issue (Remix OS).

Basically, from reading around, there seem to be two relevant bugs at play:

  1. The Nexus does not play nicely with 40Mhz channels on 2.4g
  2. The Nexus only seems to work on 5g Channels <100.

The simple solution was forcing it to only use 5Ghz and setting the closest AP to 44 (I’d changed the channel to take advantage of the higher suppprted output on the highrr frequencies). Hopefully this is of help to someone else - it makes a great Roon controller. I quite like Remix OS too, though was almost certainly unnecessary.

The only remaining glitch is that the App quits after a few days - this seems to tie in with gradually increasing memory usage. Anyone else notice this?

2

For those of a tinkering mindset in search of a good, cheap Roon controller I still think the Nexus 10 is an excellent bet, if you’re willing to gamble on obsolescence at some point and can tolerate the Wifi foibles above.

Mine was just starting to have some battery life issues so I contemplated replacing it, but you have to spend a lot of money to find something that will match its 2560x1600 resolution. Instead, I’ve just replaced the battery (thanks to some great online guides) at a total cost of around £25 rather than £400 for, say, a Tab S5e! Worth keeping an eye on eBay for a good quality second hand one, replacing the battery and you’re then good to go. Now, let’s just hope the new battery is of a decent quality :thinking::crossed_fingers: