![]() I have been playing with this a bit and have a few more points to note. I do love the integration with Allmusic’s metadata, and the clickable links to further drill into Allmusic. Missing is Amazon Music and a few others, but that can still be played via Sonos until it can’t (possibly after May), and then via an Echo Input into the Connect, at least to the segmented “old” players.Īt any rate, yes, with the Material skin, LMS is now quite nice and usable, for anyone with a modicum of technical ability. The ability to play to any UPnP and/or ChromeCast device, Sonos being included in the UPnP device category, is a definite plus. Yes, you can definitely group using the Sonos app, but of course, after May, the grouping of old with new Sonos devices goes away, so… For me, grouping has never really been all that important, but for many Sonos users, I’m sure it’s critical. Not something anyone in my family (the typical Sonos target user) would begin to attempt, but at least there’s a ton of good tutorials online, given the Pi’s popularity. I did get a Pi, which required loading several missing libs and modules at the command prompt. OK, given my previous experience with LMS, I was quite sceptical. And, despite being able to group some of the devices, they're rarely in synch, often off by more than a second. Your average Sonos owner wouldn't have even attempted this.Īfter all that, with the Chromecast and UPnP bridges installed, it does unify Sonos with my old Squeezebox Radio, my Google devices, and the KEiiD renderer into a single UI, usable, but hardly as good as the Sonos app in numerous respects. Now, I'm a techie, with decades of experience with Unix command lines, yet it took me hours to get even this far. Was finally able to manually install the Mobile skin, which is ok for phones and tablets, not so great on desktops. I well remember several years ago going through the massive update on thousands of servers, and tens of thousands of laptops at Megacorp for this very issue, the TLS 1.3 update, However, github, where the Material skin is hosted, won't allow this ancient, insecure SSL version to connect. This pulled down an ancient, very insecure version of the SSL library, but at least LMS updated. So, had to point apt to the archive repositories, as LMS wouldn't update with the current ones. Worse, it's using an ancient PowerPC CPU, which the Perl repositories have even abandoned. ![]() Unfortunately (like Sonos is planning), the hardware has been unsupported by Western Digital for years now. It still has an older version of LMS installed on it. So, pulled the old MyBookLive NAS out of storage. ![]() It is not intended to decry or compete with the base Sonos system. Maybe somebody will find it interesting and useful. I’m offering this brief overview in a spirit of cooperation and sharing. Probable that Qobuz and other streaming will be integrated)Īn active and very supportive community forum A recent addition (in beta) integrates local music library with your Spotify library (albums and playlists).You can also access one of the UK’s most popular radio services, with listen again features! Podcasts are also available. Offers access to Spotify, Qobuz, Tidal and Deezer streaming.There is no limit for local music libraries.Apps are also available for both Android and iOS (either free or at low cost. Media control is also multi-platform (via web-browser access). LMS is complementary to the native Sonos setup.Why might you consider this as an addition to your Sonos system? Here are some pros: Once installed, Sonos devices are seen by LMS as squeezebox players, and have full access to all the features which the server software offers. Installing the software is a task for an average user (and is largely accomplished via a web-browser interface). a PC running Windows, iOS, or Linux, and even some NAS) - a popular choice is the Raspbery Pi (even including the ultra-cheap Pi Zero at 20 USD). Using LMS requires that you install the server software on a networked device (eg. LMS offers some interesting features which you can use alongside the standard Sonos setup.
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