What is the Roon Essentials Remote?

[hammer]

As compared to the regular Roon Remote?

[Carl]

Hi,
The look and feel is the same as the full Roon Remote but some of the more advanced options (such as DSD playback) have been stripped out.

From the Apple Store…

Browse your library, play your favorites, and configure your Roon Essentials system.
Note that this application is only designed to work with Roon Essentials hardware such as the ELAC Discovery.
This application is not compatible with Roon.

[brian (Brian Luczkiewicz)]

Like @Carl said, Roon Essentials is a different product. It is based on some the same core technologies as Roon, but with fewer advanced features and some limitations when compared to Roon. Roon Essentials is meant to be embedded within hardware products, and the license cost is built into the hardware product instead of being something you pay for directly as with Roon.

Currently the only way to get Roon Essentials is to buy an ELAC Discovery. Other devices will be coming out over time.

[Boris_Pruessmann]

I would love to get some more details on this. Why? Because I am currently using regular Roon, but the ELAC Discovery seems to be an interesting alternative to running everything on my own hardware.

It’s just that I don’t properly understand what I would be giving up with that switch.

[RBM (René)]

Per @danny’s post in this thread on the Discovery:

Roon server appliance from ELAC

Roon Essentials has no signal path, no DSD, no streaming to Meridian, Squeezebox, HQPlayer, the high res PCM audio is capped at 192khz, it has no private zones, it has a 15k track limit (for this box, other boxes will have different limits), there are no composer/work pages, no Roon Bridge support, other stuff.

Technical support for Roon Essentials is done by the vendor, and not by Roon Labs.

It was a last minute decision to give our Roon Ready partners as much support as possible, so Roon Ready devices will work, as will Airplay.

[Boris_Pruessmann]

Thanks, Rene. That just killed the idea.

[Sergey_Revkov]

Other devices will be coming out over time.

Long time without any news
Is this program stoped?

[Just_Me]

I’ll just add a comment based on setting up an old android as a remote. Searching the “play” store, first nothing came up for Roon, then roon essentials. I was confused but downloaded and fought with it a while until i found out it was not the remote.

A re-search brought up real roon remote in the play store (you need to look at shat they are doing why does it sometimes not come up? Who knows…?)

Installed and being quite flaky - often not finding my ROCK, although they are both on the same wifi network and there is only ONE router/AP.

I would suggest labeling this something like “Roon remote for embedded devices” to avoid confusion. Of course if the play store searched properly and consistently, maybe this would nto be such an issue.

Frustrating hour and a half!