Sorry if I came across a bit rude, just annoyed with myself really for not understanding the point of this new feature.
Nice features of MyVolumio.
However, I’m sure Volumio knows that being open-source means it only a matter of time before someone creates a plugin that integrates Tidal and Qobuz into Volumio like Spotify.
What’s the game plan when this happens? Abandon FOSS?
As a side note, I’m guessing this Tidal and Qobuz integration came from the partnership with Pro-Ject. Things can get tricky when a “For Profit” company marries a Free Open Source Software entity…any plans on making this work so that both can keep their identity?
We would have been the first to integrate TIDAL or QOBUZ with open source code, however, this proved not to be possible for us:
we started working on MyVolumio and the streaming services integration a couple of years ago and soon realized that to make it happen we needed to “close” this part of the system. This is because you need an API key to make such services (and others) work, and usually, most services are not happy to lend out API keys which are available in plain text to anyone (as would have happened in the full-FOSS way).
So to get the paperwork done (yes, you need to have a legal entity responsible for terms of services and more stuff in order to work with those kind of services) we needed to have a closed source part of the system to handle those “private” things along with the free one (and trust me, the paperwork part has been way longer than the coding one).
Designing all the closed part of the system required huge time and money investment, which seemed feasible in the long term only if we could somehow recoup those costs. Ironically, this was all started by an attempt by a community member to write a QOBUZ plugin, which we could never release because we were not able to get an API key for that.
So if someone comes out with a plugin, it will just mean that I’ve missed an easier way to get it done 
As of now there are ways to get QOBUZ and TIDAL working without myvolumio (for example with upnp) and we have no intention of blocking that nor to abandon open source. I strongly believe that everyone has the right to do what they want with Volumio, and if they feel going through the UPNP route (and the extra hassle involved) that’s absolutely fine (I even gave few support hints on this scenario).
However, for our users we wanted the best integration possible with MyVolumio and I am happy to see that lot of people of this community are enjoying it so much (at a little cost which helps us in future developments).
Side note: myVolumio is not just TIDAL and QOBUZ, there are other features and more will come
Regarding partnership with For-profit:
As you might know, even if we are an open source project, we do have an OEM program for a long time, where we offer Volumio Technology as a white label solution to Hi-Fi manufacturers. We have lot of such partners, some are quite prestigious (as Pro-Ject). We have been fueling the development of Volumio since many years thanks to the funds coming from such “For profit” entities.
Typically it works this way:
- OEM wants a new feature or some improvements
- We say yes, stick a price on it and do the work
- When possible, we integrate such work on Volumio (the one you use every day)
- Companies are happy, we keep the project running and you get new features
Also we get some funds with our shop and now with MyVolumio. And those funds are used to pay the running costs of this project (many, simply impossible to cover them with donations alone).
So, Volumio itself is a for-profit entity, as I am employed full time on it (as other core team members) and we have to pay our bills with it.
I believe Volumio is a virtuous example of an open source company: we put love, effort and financials into this project and we release all we can as Free and Open Source (unlike some others…). And most of the open source code you enjoy on a daily basis has been funded thanks to the OEMs which pay us to have Volumio on their products.
So, in fact, our freedom to release FOSS software (and yours to use it) is being made possible by for profit entities.
The Pro-Ject cooperation is a perfect example (I am about to release a “behind the curtains” blog post about this):
When we worked side by side with Pro-ject for their custom solution, they were really keen to have some features integrated and some improvements made.
Some of those features were:
- The functionality selector you see on My Music
- The ability to selectively delete music from the internal memory
- Coming back to home page if logo was clicked
- Multimedia keys support
- Tweaks to muting mechanism
All of the above features are part of the Open Source Volumio that you use now, so as you can see Pro-Ject gave a design and financial contribution to the Volumio project (open source one). And no, TIDAL and QOBUZ were under development way before we started working with Pro-Ject, so it did not come from this partnership.
Last but not least, Pro-Ject Stream Box S2 Ultra received the EISA award as best streamer of 2018-2019, which made me really proud of taking part into its development (and yes, it is indeed a remarkable product).
project-audio.com/en/produc … -s2-ultra/
Hope this clarifies that being Open Source gets along very well with business entities, and that we are trying to apply such virtuous circle to make Volumio better, offering it to our users for free and that Hi-Fi industry is fueling our enjoyment (not to mention that we are becoming the best audio software for Hi-Fi products, and that IMHO, is making lot of non-expert audiophiles happy).
Hello, I’m trying MyVolumio and the Qobuz integration, it’s working pretty well. I don’t if it has been said before but I’m missing the High Res information in the search results and the Qobuz comments and booklets
Michelangelo…Thank you for the very detailed and excellent response.
I think you guys have thought out the details and are making progress. BTW congratulations on the Volumio Primo.
The Tinkerboard is a good choice as its very powerful and should [and does] run Volumio very smoothly.
Please take this as my attempt to help.
I think some people are reluctant to purchase MyVolumio…it might help to show some screen shots of the integration of Tidal and Qobuz so people have an idea of what they are getting for their money.
Roon for example has tight integration of Tidal, it might be a good idea to copy that as best you can…
I found a problem / bug in integration MyVolumio with Tidal. When I search by the artist, it does not show me all the artist’s albums, eg when I am looking for „Tina Turner” does not show me a „Live in Europe” album, when I search for „David Bowie” does not show me a „Let’s dance” album. Queen & „Live Kilkers”- the same situation. when I search for the title of the album, MyVolumio shows me these album. In the original Tidal app, on the same account, everything is ok.
Hello
Really thanks for myvolumio working with Qobuz
Have you think of Qobuz Connect so as we can use the nice Qobuz Application ?
By the way thanks again for your work
Dear Michelangelo,
thanks for the good work you are doing!
I am enjoying Volumio for about a year now and because it is so convenient to use from my sofa 
it brought back the fun into my “music life”. Too lazy to switch CDs all the time I tended to play my iPhone playlists … and now I have my CD collection at the tip of my fingers!
BUT (of course there are some buts): Starting with Volumio costs a lot of time and money:
The first step was easy: There was a Raspberry around and for some reason (price vs potential quality?) I ordered an Aoide II DAC to play around with … That was easy! Music started playing 
… fairly cheap until then … next step: TIME - I spent numerous days (and nights) to re-rip my CD collection (Apple lossless instead of moderate quality mp3) and got addicted because of the simple options: Now there are 3 Raspberries around the house to give me access to my music in other rooms … still reasonably affordable …
BUT: Then there came MyVolumio. I subscribed fairly early without knowing what to expect, because I felt that your efforts should be supported. With the MyVolumio image I entered the world pf Qobuz (buy European!!! 
) HiFi, currently a free trial …
Now I have - guess what - a financial problem: Three Raspberries means I jump from 3 to 7 € for MyVolumio. Plus Qobuz HiFi makes it 27€ per month. The family also has an Apple Music family account to keep my kids from illegal downloads … in total more than 500 €/year for music. Plus almost 1Gb of ripped CDs … my wife would kill me if she knew . 
So, to cut a long story short: 15€ Apple Music are fixed. I like the “feel” of the Qobuz pages, so I would like to keep Qobuz. If I keep the HiFi option plus MyVolumio, that is over my budget (both financially and “common sense”). If I reduce my Qobuz plan to mp3, I am down to 17€. The loss in quality would raise the question why I need MyVolumio. Airplay to the free Volumio installation would not reduce audio quality … goodbye to MyVolumio! 
Down to 10€. Then common sense would set in: Is Qobuz “worth” 10€ just because it looks nicer? What does it offer that Apple does not (I am not that much into classical music). Goodbye to Qobuz!?! Savings 100% !!! 
Okay, what now? My first suggestion: Extend the Virtuoso plan to “family”, maybe 4 or 5 users … upgrade the Superstar package by offering additonal options … Suggestions two: Cut a deal with Qobuz to integrate MyVolumio into their packages (HiFi and up …) and pay you a fee(?). Maybe even with a Qobuz(Volumio image? I would be really tempted if I could see additional information on my iPad when I use MyVolumio … Currently I am using the Qobuz webplayer to find interesting new music and search it on MyVolumio to play it lossless.
I am sorry for the long story …
greetings
stephan.
Hello Volumio team,
Thank you for your hard work on MyVolumio ! I’ve been waiting for the Qobuz integration for a long time, and so far I’m enjoying it !
I just have an issue with some of the albums in “My Albums” list, which page is empty with just the “0:0” text and I can’t find a way to play them… 
Here are the ids for some of them:
j2ttv133dixbadbirt5bd0elfcpaxghbn2mw41ao895rp4koqqwcThank you again !
I have similar concerns and would prefer a self-hosted version.
Examples, there is no mention of a Privacy Policy around data uploaded to your servers. Playlists, Favorites and presumably, entire catalogs can be sent up to MyVolumio. Are there any encryption protocols applied to user supplied data? Will it be used or sold to other companies?
Is there a way to disable the Login and Signup buttons on the Volumio interface? If it’s just a plugin, why can’t I disable it?
I haven’t used MyVolumio and probably won’t either. I’ll explain why later on, but first I want to keep it positive. Congrats with finding a way to fund this project. Obviously you have to take care of yourself as wel as a company with bills and personel. Also, really nice to see you found a creative way around some trouble concerning streaming services.
Now, here’s why I won’t use it (not in any particular order).
- I don’t use any streaming services except some webradio.This seems to be the major selling point for the premium MyVolumio subscriptions.
- Privacy concerns. I have no idea if any data is being collected and if so, what data. Let alone what might be done with it. Besides that, if this project falls into hands of a bigger company, even if you won’t use any data they might. I also don’t want any external service controlling my devices.
- Dependency concerns. I don’t want the functioning of my devices to be dependent on any service that could end or change any day of the year.
- I actually only want multiroom synced playback added. I haven’t had a lot of time last year due to private issues so haven’t had the time to really look into SnapCast as a plugin. I navigated to the Volumio page to see if there was finally any movement in this area. Now I see that there will be soon but to use this functionality I will have to pay 84 euro’s a year, share private data and be dependent on external services. Besides paying 84 euro’s a year I still need to invest in streaming devices and speakers. If I assume 5 years of usage of any other brand of multiroom speakers and add other costs and ignore my concerns of point 2 or 3, I almost might as well buy a system from a reputable big name brand.
Now, how could this be solved? Obviously you need funds and you will probably prioritize functionality that will generate income. I wouldn’t mind pledging an amount of money for the functionality of local/native multiroom synced playback. If we could combine this idea with publicity maybe we can generate enough pledges to make it interesting for you to develop this functionality?
(concerning point 2 and 3, I have Philips Hue but never created an account. Sent back Tado thermostats after finding out it won’t work without any cloud service etc.)
Yes, fully agree. Sorry my initial reply to this thread was largely negative. I definitely want to see the core team getting rewarded for their efforts. I’m a big fan of Volumio and want to see it developed further.
well said and I’m in full agreement with you. I’d also add one more point:
- Favorites and Playlist syncing. This should be a core feature. Volumio should be able to read an m3u playlist stored on a network drive. That should be a top priority feature, IMO.
I know, I know, the FAQ says “We won’t do anything bad with your data” but it’s a hollow promise. It’s not like we have any control once you have our data and you don’t have a well-written privacy policy. That should also be a high priority for any cloud-based service, especially one in Europe.
Premium pricing means premium service and I don’t see that yet.
Anyway, I’d love to donate to the project, I just don’t want to be a subscriber.
Stephan, thank you so much for the feedback. You know, your idea is really good (and plex just did it with TIDAL). I will talk with QOBUZ about that! Good idea
Michelangelo
-
I don’t use any streaming services except some webradio.This seems to be the major selling point for the premium MyVolumio subscriptions.
As of now I see that Streaming services are seen as the big deal. But don’t underestimate the remote control capability. Also more new features are coming. See later. -
Privacy concerns. I have no idea if any data is being collected and if so, what data. Let alone what might be done with it. Besides that, if this project falls into hands of a bigger company, even if you won’t use any data they might. I also don’t want any external service controlling my devices.
Yes, data is collected (typically your playlists, radio favourites and all the data that we currenlty sync, also we collect what you’re playing now in order to show it in the multiroom selector). We are developing a feature for you to download all the data that we store, this way you will see what we are collecting (and you keep your data portability). Last, we designed myvolumio in a way that even if our services stop to work, no other functionality of volumio is impacted. -
Dependency concerns. I don’t want the functioning of my devices to be dependent on any service that could end or change any day of the year.
See above. -
I actually only want multiroom synced playback added. I haven’t had a lot of time last year due to private issues so haven’t had the time to really look into SnapCast as a plugin. I navigated to the Volumio page to see if there was finally any movement in this area. Now I see that there will be soon but to use this functionality I will have to pay 84 euro’s a year, share private data and be dependent on external services. Besides paying 84 euro’s a year I still need to invest in streaming devices and speakers. If I assume 5 years of usage of any other brand of multiroom speakers and add other costs and ignore my concerns of point 2 or 3, I almost might as well buy a system from a reputable big name brand.
This is on our todo list.
Last, I am very reluctant to add advertising, because I think this will impact the experience way more than what myvolumio does. One of the ideas we had to fund the project was to show an advertisement once in a while in place of the default albumart. But IMHO this would have brought few financials and would have risen more concerns by the community.
Thanks robcee.
M3U already works, but it’s quite complicated to make them work all-round in such kind of systems: we usually don’t know what is the absolute path. But we’ll look into it more. In any case it’s not related to favourites and playlist syncing.
As I mentioned earlier we are preparing some “privacy oriented” features in the profile, like the ability to see what data we have and to allow you to download it. I see your comment about our privacy policy. Would you mind helping us draft it better? What do you think we should add?
What would be a feature that would make sense for you?
hey michaelangelo. Thanks for taking the time to reply.
I have a number of m3u playlists in the top level of my shared drive. The paths have been sanitized to match the local copy, but I believe are using relative paths rather than an absolute. None of the playlists show up in Volumio after updating the library.
I’d be happy to help with a privacy policy draft.
A feature that might make sense for me could be remote streaming of my collection to a phone or tablet when I’m away from home. Not sure if that’s planned or not, but feel free to build it in. (edit: if it’s not already in the works)
Hi,
first of all, I wish to MyVolumio success, it is good idea for funding the project development. I just hope, some will happen in the core Volumio too. Few things:
- I did some translations in the core Volumio, is there a way to do translations for MyVolumio?
But honestly, otherwise I would join the queue of not big cloud fans:
- Is there a plan of self hosted possibility? I don’t stream music, and I don’t like seeing some many people with headphones on the streets; its dangerous and won’t here your greetings… But at home, having single control for all Volumio devices with shared playlists etc. would be great (sorry if it was already answered)
Hi Michelangelo, after few months using Myvolumio virtuoso, i am seriously thinking about downgrading to the free version. Note: i only use it with Qobuz streaming in hi-res.
For a user like me, Myvolumio’s Qobuz plugin at the moment does not offer any advantage compared to free upnp apps such as Mconnect, capable of streaming at 192khz.
The interface is much poorer. Just few examples:
- no hi-res tag
- back button not always working
- no similar artists
- no search log
- “go to artist/album” never worked and only available in player tab, not in browser
- cannot get rid of web radios from search results
- no popular tracks in artist page
- cannot filter Qobuz new releases by music genre
- no descriptions / editorial content
I am your supporter and sympathetic to your enterprise, but wondering when will the user experience be up to the level that some other apps are giving for free. Just have a look at Mconnect to realize we are lagging a couple of steps behind…
If improving the ui is not a priority for the team, at least enable Chromecast protocol so that native Qobuz/Tidal apps can be used instead, and they are the best ui by definition.
Thanks for your answers. Any idea when independent synced multiroom playback will be realised? I understand what software development is like and am not asking a particular day, but maybe if it’s planned for q1/2/3/4?