Hi, is it opossible to control a Volumio Primo from a PC through a direct Ethernet connection? Or do I need to go through a router?
Jan
Not really sure what you are aiming for.
Is Volumio not connected via wlan or lan network at all?
I take the Primo with me on trips for demos and always have issues to connect it to the local internet.
Hot spot sometimes comes up, sometimes not.
Bad impression on the audience.
So if I can control it from the PC (with Volumio app installed on that PC) I don’t need the local internet.
Not sure if I can just connect the PC to the Primo with an Ethernet cable, or whether I need to put a router in between.
Jan
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I see your issue, what about sharing the hotspot from your smartphone when you are mobile? When you would be connected, which music sources would you be using?
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It’s not so much the availability of a wireless network, it’s just such a pain, often needing multiple tries or not succeeding at all, to connect to another network than the home network.
Often at switch-on it comes up as a hotspot, which then shuts down in seconds before you can connect to it. It’s very unstable and unreliable.
I play mostly from external SSD or USB stick connected to the Primo.
Edit: I probably can use the miniDSP USB to Optical converter. Input from PC over USB, output over Toslink to the Primo. That should work, worth a try for % 130.
Edit2: Oeps, no - Primo doesn’t have an optical input …
Jan
Just an idea
Take a router with you. (set it up in a similar fasion to the one at home ie same DHCP pool, same SSID if you use wireless etc)
when you get where you are going turn on the router ( it may take a little longer to initialise as there is no internernet connection) then turn on the primo, it should auto connect to that router, your phone/laptop etc too.
What you have done is create a network that your phone and primo already has connection details for.
I can try that, I think I have a router hanging around here somewhere.
Something else occurred to me: when exactly does the hotspot come on? If there’s any wifi detected, does it stay off?
Or does it turn on when none of the detected wifi networks is known from a previous connection?
Jan
the trick I use is to create a WiFi hotspot with my smartphone, with the same SSID and password of my home network.
when ready, I turn on my laptop and Volumio device, both of them will be connected to the hotspot as they do at home, so I can control my Volumio device from my laptop
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That’s smart! Thanks for that.
Jan
I gave it a try but not really successful.
I set up a separate wireless router, with the same SSID and PW as my main network.
Then I turned off the main internet router.
My devices all connected to the separate router, no internet connection of course, but seeing each other.
Except they didn’t see the Primo anymore. Power cycled the Primo, no success.
Turned on the main internet router, connected my devices, and there was the Primo.
Not sure what happened, could it be that the extra router although having the same SSID/PW still looked ‘different’ to the Primo?
Jan
No, devices cannot distinguish between routers, or basically they could after connecting, but they won’t. While it’s a huge design flaw when looking at security point of view, it’s also something that benefits the end user in certain situations.
As long as the SSID, password and network band(2.4ghz or 5ghz) is same, primo or any other device in that matter will happily connect to it.
Ive been using the trick for years when I get new router to avoid configuring all other devices again.
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If you have two routers running at the same time with the same SSID etc some devices dont like it and constantly switch back and forth obviously dropping the connection whilst doing so.
I take it you are just testing at the moment, whilst doing so turn off the home router.
Yes that might have been the case.
What I did was connect the Primo also with an Ethernet cable to the extra router, then turned off the internet router. I could see the Primo on the PC, in fact saw two devices, two IP’s, the wired and the wireless.
Looking at the settings I saw both a wired and a wireless connection.
That was from the PC, the phone and iPad mini didn’t see the Primo. That was a disappointment.
How can that be? They both were connected to the xtra router.
Jan
Just some thoughts
Not sure what address you are using to connect to the primo the .local address or the IP address.
But now the primo is connected by ethernet it will hav another IP address for the ethernet.
If you log into the router you can fin out the IP address for the ethernet connection of the primo and try typing that into the address bar of your browser on the phone/ipad assuming that they are definitely connected to the xtra router. Alot of mobile devices if they cant find internet over the wifi will drop it and contect via mobile network.
I think I got it going. I set up a Huawei router as-is, which then comes up as a hotspot. Connected the Primo to it via Ethernet. The Primo is still also connected to the home network via WiFi.
Using the Samsung Phone and Tablet, I can now connect those to either the home wifi or the Huawei hotspot and in each case I can connect to the Primo. Disabling the home wifi I can still find the Primo through the Huawei router, so that’s an option for on the road use.
My vintage Apple iPad mini has problems to find the Primo when switching. If I uninstall the app, then re-install, it finds the Primo, but when I switch to another connection, the same issue.
But that may be an issue from that iPad mini which is probably 10+ years old and can’t run latest software. Time to retire it?
I also succeeded to connect my Android phone to the Windows laptop via Link to PC, a Windows app which I didn’t even know existed.
Now the laptop lets me run any Android app from the phone.
I can open Volumio on the laptop and the screen looks like I have it on open on the phone.
Brave new world!
Jan