Airplay for multiple speakers at the same time

Michael

At the moment it's (officially) only possible to stream to multiple airplay speakers at the same time if you do it directly from iTunes. Will Homey make it possible to send audio to multiple Airplay devices at the same time, so the music will be the same in the whole house? And if yes will you have individual volume control as in iTunes?

Lesley

Try Airfoil, it works perfect! No freeware unfortunately but it'll definitely do the trick.

Even though Airfoil works perfect, I'm using Qualcomm's Allplay Jukebox App in combination with a couple of Gramofon's around the house. Also through WiFi so the sound quality is just fine. Some cool features like grouping/party mode, sending different sources (NAS, Spotify Connect, Rhapsody, Napster, etc.) to different Gramofon's with different volume levels at the same time with your phone as a remote.

RobinVanKekem

@Lesly, does the Gramofon support Bluetooth streaming?

MarcoF

@RobinVanKekem;

https://gramofon.com > FAQ > Does Gramofon support Bluetooth?

Answer;

Nope. Bluetooth means lower sound quality, limited range and interruptions when you receive a call/lock the phone. The Gramofon uses WiFi in order to avoid all of these issues.

YW

RobinVanKekem

Thanks @MarcoF

Lesley

For example Bluetooth aptX isn't to bad regarding to sound quality > "aptX supports bit-depths of 16-bit, 20-bit or 24-bit. For 16-bit audio sampled at 48 kHz, the bit-rate for E-aptX is 384 kbit/s (2-channel), 767 kbit/s (4-channel), 1024 kbit/s (5.1-channel), and 1.28 Mbit/s (5.1 channels plus stereo)."

It'll never beats WiFi.

Really hope that Homey will support Spotify Connect so that Homey will be the remote and Gramofon streams the music directly from the Internet. As for now, their still on Spotify's waiting list.

Michael

My initial question was actually if Homey would be able to do this without the use of additional hard- or software.

[Deleted User]

Michael said:
At the moment it's (officially) only possible to stream to multiple airplay speakers at the same time if you do it directly from iTunes. Will Homey make it possible to send audio to multiple Airplay devices at the same time, so the music will be the same in the whole house? And if yes will you have individual volume control as in iTunes?

This is a standard feature of iTunes.

Airfoil is helpful if you would like to use other sources (such as Spotify), but although I like the function, using airfoil will not improve the sound quality. Maybe the best way forward is to use the Aggregate-Audio-Device and setup your own setup (Idid not try this yet).

Spotify Connect is great, Gramofon is an not expensive great example to improve sound quality for basic Spotify streaming devices. Love to see Homey can control multiple Spotify Connect devices.

JaapPelt

It is my understanding that the music does not go through Homey, but instead, homey tells a device to play music from a source (like a remote specifying a tv channel). Is this understanding correct?

I have been looking into some multiroom speakers to play the same music in the living room and kitchen (in sync) rather than very loudly in the living room only. Samsung multiroom promises this. Do any of you have good experience with streaming music to multiple multiroom speakers synchronously? Are there any raspberry pi based DIY solutions out there which can also do this? I have read some examples using VLC, but it doesn't seem to be ideal for steaming services.

Michael

Maybe @Emile can elaborate on this?

Emile

The music source is Homey in most cases. An app can expose a music service (e.g. SoundCloud, Spotify etc.), which can play music.

For speakers like Sonos, I think we might create an app to control that speaker specificly through their services. But we want to see how this works first.

This is how the mobile interface looks now: