VOLUMIO 3.3 UNIVERSAL IS HERE

What does it mean by ALL music lovers? We thought that the values audiophiles believe in, can be of great enjoyment also to a wider music community.  This is why we are introducing our newest release, Volumio 3.3, as Volumio UNIVERSAL. We added new features that give the ability to use our music player in many new playback devices available in the market, both increasing convenience of Volumio as the central hub for music playback that can be appealing for both audiophiles and for music listeners in general.

So, without further ado, let’s see what Volumio Universal brings:

MANIFEST USER INTERFACE FOR EVERYONE!

The Manifest User, who we introduced in the launch of Volumio 3 only for Premium users, will now be available for ALL, both Free and Premium Users. We believe the Manifest UI is the best in terms of aesthetics and music presentation, so we decided everyone should have it. Old UIs are still available but will be decommissioned (maybe becoming optional plugins) soon.

In addition to have it available for all, we worked on making improvements to be more user-friendly, especially on the mobile version. We also redesigned the main menu and designed a new output menu that gives new and improved functionalities which you will learn more about in the next paragraphs.

NEW OUTPUT MENU

In the manifest UI, there is a new output menu with new and improved functionalities:

• Volume control
• Remote Control: the Remote control option on any Volumio device
• Multiroom Control Management with improvements.

And the newest features of Volumio 3.3. Available for Premium users:

• Play Here Function
• Sonos and Chromecast outputs

PLAY HERE FUNCTION

The Play Here function, allows you to stream the audio from Volumio to your mobile device, your computer and also your smart TV. Pretty much everywhere the UI is displayed. For example, if you open Volumio on your computer browser, you can click on the Play Here button found on the output menu and the sound will come out from your computer.

This means that you can enjoy Volumio as a normal music player app when you work on your PC, or via Bluetooth headphones connected to your mobile phone. Since Volumio is a powerful music aggregator, it’s a convenient way to integrate your music from different sources and leave it playing when cooking, working, gardening or having a party. Where audio quality is not needed, and good background music is preferred.

CASTING TO CHROMECAST AND SONOS

With the Casting option on the output menu, you can cast whatever you are playing in Volumio to any Chromecast and Sonos device. Now Volumio is compatible with different endpoints from the single app. As the title says, output whatever audio you are playing on Volumio to your Chromecast-enabled devices (Google Home, Chromecast-enabled Soundbar, Chromecast Audio, etc.) and SONOS devices.

The stream happens thanks to a low-latency HLS encoding which can be sent to any of the above devices. Please note that synchronization is not possible between Chromecast devices and SONOS devices, but you can play to a Sonos Group to have audio synchronized to that group.

This, in a nutshell, it the latest round of features that you will see in Volumio 3.3. In short, those features will make Volumio YOUR UNIVERSAL MUSIC PLAYER.

How to get Volumio 3.3?

If you are a first time Volumio user, you can download it directly here. If you already have Volumio installed on your device, go to System Updates and click on Check Updates. You are looking for v3.378.

What do you think? Do you like what you see?

Let us know in the comments and enjoy!

The post Introducing Volumio UNIVERSAL appeared first on Volumio.

Sometimes we found some tracks available on a music service but not on other sources we have available. Creating a hybrid playlist works as a way to blend it all together, and play all the tracks without having to jump from one source to another. Let’s see ahead how simple it is to create a hybrid playlist from all your sources in Volumio. 

Add your Sources to Volumio

First, make sure all your sources are connected on Volumio and you are logged in to your MyVolumio account. Connect your sources (NAS connected; Spotify, TIDAL logged in; CD drive connected, whichever sources you will like to get your music from).

On the main page, as you see above, you will find a small icon with the magnifying glasses and a folder, this is the Browse icon and will take you to, you guessed it, the Browse page, which you can see below. Here you will find all the sources available and ready to use on your Volumio device. 

Choose the source, and choose a track

Choose a source from the browse page

Let’s start by clicking one source and finding a track we like. 

Create or Add to a Playlist

Once you find a track, click on the More options (the three dots on the right of the track name) icon and you will find the option Add to Playlist.

Click on Add to Playlist. If you already have playlists created, you can add the track to an existing playlist or create a brand new one. 

You can go back to the Browse page, choose another source and repeat the same steps to add more tracks to your playlist. 

Once done, you can find all the playlists created, by going to the Browse Page and click on the Playlist section. All of them will be saved on your account so you can go back to each and edit them at any time. 

Add to Playlist from Main Page

There is another approach you can use as well. If you are listening to a song directly from the main page, click on the plus icon and add the song you are currently playing to any playlist.

You can see the full process in the video below:

Now drop in the comments the most original (accepting funny too) playlist name you have on Volumio!

The post Create a Hybrid Playlist From Different Sources in Volumio appeared first on Volumio.

As we all heard your feedback in this past year, what is wonderful about this feature, is the convenience and the ease of use and the availability to control your music not only from the Volumio UI but also from your TIDAL app. To get started with TIDAL Connect is pretty simple. You need: The TIDAL app downloaded on your mobile or tablet and your Volumio device with our Premium subscription.

Set up TIDAL Connect on Volumio

First, make sure you have logged in on MyVolumio Virtuoso or Premium on your device. Then on your mobile, open the TIDAL app and choose the track you want to play and head to the “Now Playing” page. You will see on the top right a device icon, click over there to see all the available devices to connect.

Since your Volumio device has TIDAL connect enabled, you will see your device in the option with the TIDAL Connect written underneath. Click on the device and TIDAL Connet will be connected. You will see the changes on the Now Playing page as shown in the image below. Now TIDAL Connect is active on your Volumio device and you are ready to listen to your favorite music!

You can control everything directly from the TIDAL app. Plus, if you have the Volumio UI open, you will see all the information about the track you are playing, as the metadata from TIDAL is all sent to Volumio and you can play, skip, and pause from Volumio.

TIDAL Connect with Volumio Multiroom Sync Playback

Multiroom Option

Tip: with the Multiroom Sync Playback feature on Volumio, you can stream TIDAL Connect to all your Volumio devices available in the same network. Once you enable TIDAL Connect on one device, go on the Volumio playback page and click on the multiroom icon. Group your current device with all the other Volumio devices you want* (*up to 6).

And the final step: play your music at full blast in all your rooms and enjoy!

The post Stream Music via TIDAL Connect and Volumio appeared first on Volumio.

We can say we are extremely proud of the community we have built these past few years. We’ve noticed how much you guys enjoy Volumio as much as we do developing it. Therefore, we have decided to have our referral program for you to be rewarded while sharing Volumio to your close ones.

The MyVolumio Referral program is dedicated to ALL MyVolumio users. If you have a MyVolumio account, whether it is the free or premium account, you are instantly eligible to participate.

How does MyVolumio Referral Program works?

1. You must have a MyVolumio account. If you don’t have it yet, it only takes two minutes to create one.
2. After you have signed up or logged in on your MyVolumio account, you can find on your profile page the Referral section, simply click on “Start sharing now” and you are in!
3. You will get an unique referral link that you can share it in different platforms to everybody you know.
4. Once your friend signs up to MyVolumio through your unique link, it will count as one referral.
5. You get rewarded! The rewards are according to the milestone program and your subscription type, and the leaderboard program.

What are the Milestone & Leaderboard Campaigns?

MyVolumio Referral Program consists of two campaigns: Milestone & Leaderboard. For each milestone achieved, you’ll receive the rewards according to your subscription type (Free, Virtuoso or Superstar). At the end of each month, the top 1 on the leaderboard will receive the big prize!

What are the rewards?

Milestone rewards are received depending of which plan do you have active on your account. You can win Virtuoso and Superstar premium plans according to your subscription. We separated the rewards according to your active susbcription type to be fair to all users, and get the rewards according to the value of your subscription.

Milestone Rewards:

• 1 Referral: 5% discount on Volumio Primo
• 5 Referrals: Additional month for free on your subscription. If you have MyVolumio Free, you will get one month free of MyVolumio Virtuoso.
• 10 Referrals: Additional two months for free on your current paid subscription. If you have If you have MyVolumio Free, you will get one month free of MyVolumio Virtuoso.
• 30 Referrals: One year for free on your subscription. For MyVolumio Free users, you will receive a one year of MyVolumio Virtuoso.

Leaderboard Reward: The one with most referral each month will receive a MyVolumio Superstar Lifetime plan!

You can see your unique link, the rewards, a real-time count of your referral and the leaderboard on the Volumio UI or myvolumio.org while logged in on your account, as you can see in the image below.

We’ve seen you enjoy Volumio, so why not share your love to the rest? Our goal is to help you share their your experience with Volumio and excitement with the rest. As an user, with the Referral Program you’ll get rewarded whenever your unique referral link is being used by everybody you know when they sign up to MyVolumio and grow our community!

This program’s goal is for our users to invite other people to join Volumio. If you are enjoying Volumio we want you to show to your friends and closed ones why you use our services and why they should try it as well. And from there, you receive all the rewards. Therefore, is important to mention we do not accept any fraudulent participation and behavior on the program. We do this with good intentions, hence, we expect the same from all participants.

Let’s share with MyVolumio Referral Program today! Create your account today or log in to your MyVolumio account and participate!

Happy Referring to all!

The post Invite your friends and get rewarded with MyVolumio Referral Program! appeared first on Volumio.

The Music and Artists Credit Discovery feature will allow you to answer all the questions above and more by exploring the behind the scenes of the music you listen on MyVolumio.

You can see on the video above a quick overview of how this new feature works.

The new released is available to all MyVolumio Superstar subscribers. We believe is an important addition for the audiophile, letting you find out detailed information about songs, artists or albums.

You can read the biography of your favorite artists.

From the biography of an artist to the story of the studio where an album was recorded, all this information will be easily accessed on the User Interface. You can access to all this data on the browse menu, or in the playback page.

Want to know who play what? Now you can!

The Music and Artists Credit Discovery feature gives you the opportunity to learn the story of each album, the credits list, or even the instruments that were used to record from all the music on your local files. And not only for your local files, but also for MyVolumio compatible services such as Tidal, Qobuz, Spotify, and more.

The feature comes in different languages (French Version)

Adding to all these capabilities, the data can be available in the current language you use on the software, but if that’s not the case, the will appear in English.

You can also enjoy it on the mobile version.

And this is where we say thank you to all the contributors that made this release possible. This new addition to MyVolumio would not have been possible without the help of Jo, his creative mind came up with the idea, worked on the cloud side of it and the design, making this vision a reality.

Another important contribution we must acknowledge is to Agnes & Bence of Ollala Design Studio. For all Volumio users, this great team worked on the usability of the Volumio UI, releasing a refreshed web user interface, with many fixes. The Ollalla Design Studio team explained “In this release we designed and implemented the newest iteration of the music browser. The main goal was to provide a flatter and more content rich music experience for the users while maintaining consistency with the existing UI. This project was definitely a good start to get to know Volumio and the team. Stay tuned for the leap of developments that are coming! Volumio has a bright future and we’ll make sure to polish the UI this pearl.”

A big thanks goes as well to Chris for his great insights, code contributions and suggestions, Gkkpch, Balbuze, Ash, Giacomo, Monica, Stefano, Massimiliano and all Volumio team members which do awesome things for this project.

Last but not least, we have to thank Wikipedia and Music Brainz (to which we are proud to be Supporters) for their amazing collective work over the years. The contribution of those 2 projects to mankind wisdom and access to information is invaluable. Without them, the work we’ve done on this feature would not simply be possible. If you appreciate freedom of information, think about the fact that those 2 projects have huge operational costs to be run, so consider making a donation to keep them making the world a better place ( Wikimedia foundation Donation Link, Metabrainz Foundation Donation Link).

Learn all the credits in the Credit Section

Now that we’ve shown you what the Music and Artists Credit Discovery features does, the facts you can read and learn about your favorite music, and the refreshed Volumio web UI; we want to invite you to see it for yourself and try it out!

The feature is available to MyVolumio Superstar users, just update Volumio to the latest version and enjoy the feature, in the event you still cannot see it, simply refresh your browser page.

This new release brings also many improvements for the free Volumio system (as you know, the financial boost coming out from MyVolumio is reinvested in the whole platform, no just the freemium part). All users are getting a reworked Album and Artist overview pages (with a more informative readout of the item, such as genre and file type), and a whole bunch of minor fixes. Next on our roadmap is to further improve the “customizability” of the browse page to allow you to “PIN” your favorite items for faster access and extra convenience.

Last but not least, we want your feedback! What do you think about this new addition to MyVolumio? Do you find it useful and interesting? Are there other credits information about your music you would like see? Give us your opinion or write down any questions you may have in the comment section!

Enjoy!

The post Discover Your Music With MyVolumio Latest Credits Feature! appeared first on Volumio.

Dear Community!
We’re excited to announce that Volumio Alexa Skill is now available. This means you will now be able to control Volumio playback using Amazon’s Alexa voice control.

We know that virtual assistants and voice user interactions are becoming more and more mainstream and widely adopted by consumers. So we wanted to give you access to Volumio Alexa Skill.

This feature is available now for all MyVolumio users on a Virtuoso and Superstar plan.

If you want to upgrade you can click here and chose one of our Virtuoso or Superstar Plan.

Enabling Volumio Alexa Skill:

First,  install the Volumio Alexa skill from Alexa’s app. Then, on search skills write “Volumio” and install it.

Steps for Alexa Skill configuration:

• Now, Click on “Activate” to start the configuration.
• Then, login using your MyVolumio credential and allow Alexa.
• Once you receive your user credential information confirmation, click on “Find” to find the registered Volumio devices or ask: “Alexa, discover my devices”.Note: when the device search is finished we suggest you to wait about 30 seconds before play the music.
• Finally, play the music on Volumio using the device name. For example, if you have a device called “kitchen”, ask “Alexa, play on kitchen”

Now, You can control Volumio by using voice commands such as:

“Alexa, turn up the volume on Volumio” or “Alexa, next song on Volumio”

That’s it!

We hope you will enjoy it!

The post Volumio Alexa Skill – Find out more appeared first on Volumio.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Volumio Team is proud to announce that MyVolumio beta phase is now over, and that starting from today it will be available to everyone!

If you’re late to the party and don’t know what MyVolumio is, here’s a quick recap for you:

MyVolumio is a set of premium features, together with some cloud wizardry that expand Volumio capabilities. Specifically:

• TIDAL and QOBUZ native implementations (so you can enjoy those two Streaming Services in their full Hi-Res glory
• Automatic syncing and backup of Favourites, Playlists and Webradios (and they do get automatically imported on new installs too!)
• Remote Control of your devices from myvolumio.org (so you will be able to control your devices remotely, and without messing with IP addresses or Dynamic DNS stuff…)

And the fun is not over here: thanks to the cloud infrastructure we’ve set up for MyVolumio, we will be able to bring you even more functionalities in the near future (such as CD Playback and Ripping, Remote Streaming of your files, Synced Multiroom Playback, Auto-Updates and so on). If you’re curious to see why we developed MyVolumio you will find a pretty comprehensive explanation in this post and in this forum thread.

I would really like to thank you all beta testers that participated in the MyVolumio Beta testing program: thanks to your help we are now able to deliver this amazing addition for all our beloved users!

So, if you’re eager to get started, here’s how you can do it:

1. Update your Volumio install or download it and flash it (you’re looking for version 2.501 onwards)
2. Create your MyVolumio account. You can do it either from Volumio’s User Interface or from myvolumio.org
3. From your profile page, select  “Upgrade your Plan” and select your favourite flavour of awesomeness: Virtuoso 2,99 euros/month and 28,99 euros/year or Superstar 6,99 euros/month and 66,99 euros/year.
4. From now on you will see TIDAL and QOBUZ settings into My Music section and you will be able to control your device remotely from myvolumio.org (click on the play button next to your device).

By selecting one of our Premium Plans, not only you’ll get the aforementioned features, but you will actively support our project (and fund the development of the next great features we have in mind).

If you want to experience the best Volumio has to offer and support the project SUBSCRIBE NOW TO MYVOLUMIO!

UPDATE

I really wish to say a huge thank you to everyone which joined MyVolumio in the first 3 days of release. We really had an overwhelming response, well beyond our most optimistic expectations (we got hundreds of MyVolumio subscriptions in the first 3 days).

A sincere thank you to whom subscribed, to who will do it and to everyone which participated to development and discussion of MyVolumio!

The post MyVolumio is finally available for all Volumio users appeared first on Volumio.

The Volumio team is proud to present you MyVolumio.

MyVolumio is the brainchild of a dream we had since few years: emancipate our beloved Volumio Audiophile player from being just accessible on the local network, and make it communicate with the world out there.
To make what, you might be asking.

To extend Volumio capabilities. To make Volumio smarter. To make Volumio better in new ways, and most important: to make ourselves enjoy more our music.

So, let’s go straight to the point: we’ve been working hard for almost 2 years to make something which we think will evolve Volumio by a great shot.

And guess what, we called it MyVolumio because we have plenty of creativity, and we wanted to be truly yours, Volumio user.

WHAT IS MYVOLUMIO

In a nutshell, myVolumio is:

– A premium paid subscription service which extends Volumio’s capabilities
– It’s available in 3 tiers: free, Virtuoso and Superstar
– It’s not mandatory, and never will be, to enjoy Volumio (which will remain free and open source)
– Awesome

You will be able to access MyVolumio directly from Volumio’s Web Interface or by navigating to myvolumio.org

WHY WE MADE MYVOLUMIO

It always felt to us that Volumio needed an evolutionary leap: it’s just great, but it could have been better with a Cloud Service supporting it, allowing it to integrate smoothly with online and cloud music service. Let’s face it: this is where digital music is going.

Music in increasingly dematerializing and it’s getting more and more fragmented into a plethora of online services, and a Music Player which has some ambitions must be capable of fetching every kind of music from every kind of service.

Then, the way we currently use Volumio, via browser from a local network is great. We imagined that it could have been even better, for example by allowing control of it even without being connected to your home network, or from anywhere you are.

Last, the single most requested features were streaming services support like QOBUZ and Tidal, and we simply could not have been able to deliver them without a wider approach which involved some additions to Volumio as we know it.

HOW DOES MYVOLUMIO WORK

Basically, you will be able to crete an account on MyVolumio (like you do with every other service in the world) which will allow you to experience some pretty good stuff nicely integrated in your Volumio player.

After you created your account, MyVolumio can be accessed in 2 ways: directly from the Volumio UI or via myvolumio.org . You will retain the same functionalities in both modes, and when you’re not connected to your network you can access MyVolumio (and your associated devices) from Myvolumio.org.

That’s it.

You’ll notice a profile tab on the usual settings menu, and by going to your profile you can choose which device to connect, edit your profile settings or upgrade your subscription in any moment.

From there, you will be able to subscribe on our 3 subscription tiers, which offer different levels of features:

FREE
That’s your entry point here, feel free to look around and experiment. By signing in for the free account you will be part of the family, and we’re working hard to bring some cool feature for the free tier as soon as possible (suggestions are very welcome).

VIRTUOSO
That’s where it gets interesting: you get the full MyVolumio experience for one device. We expect this to be the ideal choice for all of you which have only one Volumio player, but want more from it.

SUPERSTAR
It can’t get any better. You get the full MyVolumio experience (same features as the Virtuoso plan) but for up to 6 devices together, which you can use at the same time. So if you’re like me and you’ve basically a Volumio player in every corner of the house, you will be able to control them all from one convenient place.

As you will read later, we are releasing MyVolumio initially as an Open Beta, to gather your feedback and to make it ready for prime time.

This gives also us a chance to show you what we have in mind and what can be achieved with it. Let’s view what MyVolumio introduces:

STREAMING SERVICES SUPPORT

The single most asked question has been: when do we get other streaming services support (namely TIDAL and QOBUZ). Well, we’ve worked really hard since day 1 of Volumio2 development to bring such functionalities.
It turned out to be an extremely complex task, due to legal requirements and technical challenge. So the only way we could make it happen has been creating a cloud service to support them. This is in fact, how we started working on what has later become MyVolumio. So yes, we’ve laid the groundwork for every major streaming service support. And the good news is that we have a great one from day 1.

QOBUZ VOLUMIO INTEGRATION IS AVAILABLE WITH MYVOLUMIO

We’ve worked closely with QOBUZ to make it happen, and we finally made it. I must admit it has not been easy in the beginning, but in the process I really saw the tremendous improvement this Music Service has done over the last year and I am pretty sure it will become the first choice of many.

What I really love about QOBUZ is their editorial selection (which is beautifully presented in MyVolumio). It’s definitely a great way to discover music, for all tastes. Well done on that.

Last but not least, directly from MyVolumio you can receive a 30 days free trial from QOBUZ, so you don’t have more excuses for not trying it.

REMOTE VOLUMIO CONTROL

And when I say remote, I mean it. With MyVolumio you can add as much as 6 Volumio players into a single account, and control them directly even if you’re not connected to your home network. Even if you’re not in the same city.
Even from a different continent (yeah, that’s not quite useful I know).

But this is a great advantage if you want to have all your playback endpoints available in a single glance without messing with IP address or network issues.
Not to mention that we use an end-to-end encrypted connection, so you get a pretty big bonus in security.

MYVOLUMIO ROLLOUT MASTERPLAN

As I already anticipated, we are relesing MyVolumio as an Open Beta, until we hammer it to perfection. This is our plan:

Phase 1: Open Beta

Even if we worked on MyVolumio for more than 18 months as of now, we need to make sure everything runs as good as our community deserves. This means addressing every possible residual misbehavior MyVolumio has.
So, we decided to relase MyVolumio initially as an Open Beta to validate our Cloud infrastructure, to see how well it performs under reasonable loads and to make it as stable as possible.

As some of you know, Volumio counts about 150k users: and serving such a potentially wide crowd is something to be taken seriously. Phasing out the load our infrastructure is the soundest choice to get us prepared for the big show.

This is why we deiced to release MyVolumio in this Open Beta stage. What it means is:
– We will provide a limited amount of Voucher codes for people to try it for free. We will offer about 50 voucher codes every week to gradually increase the load on the system. This does not mean that this beta is closed:  everyone can subscribe to MyVolumio service, but we want to offer the possibility to enjoy it for free to our community members, while they are willing to give us a hand by reporting suggestions, feedbacks and bug reports. Voucher codes have a limited duration of 2 months.

– We are starting with a limited set of functionalities, in order to perfect them and focus on having few but robust additional features. Namely:

– Secure Remote connection from anywhere to your Volumio player.
– Full QOBUZ support

We will be adding in this phase also:
– Automatic syncing and backup of Favourites, My Webradios, WebRadio Favourites and Playlists
– Another very famous Hi-Res Streaming service (it ends with L) integration

Last but not least, we want to listen to what our beloved community has to say about this work we’ve been doing behind the curtains for so long. Our vision is to create a set of cloud-based additional features that improve the listening experience with Volumio, and we’re eager to know if we actually made something relevant for you guys.

Before focusing on moving forward with more functions, we want to know if this is a good direction or if there is something we should reconsider, and how.
The single most important feature that MyVolumio is asked to serve is to improve the experience of people like us, who just love to listen and discover exciting music. We’ve done our part, now it’s your time to say what you think about it.

You can leave your feedbacks in the MyVolumio Feedback thread

This initial Phase will last for likely a couple of months, and we will then progress to official release, expansion and community driven development. More info on the MyVolumio 101 thread.

Last, but not least we want to make it very clear that Volumio is and will remain always free and Open Source.

MyVolumio is a set of additional premium capabilities which are not mandatory at all to enjoy Volumio.
We will retain all current features as Free and Open, and we will also add new one in this scheme. In parallel, we will be adding new and new features to MyVolumio.

It’s very important to note that if you love the Volumio project, MyVolumio is the perfect way to sustain it financially, and get a pretty good features bonus in return.

If you’re still here after this huge post, then it means you really want to try MyVolumio! During the Beta Stage we will offer special MyVolumio images for download, which are separate from Volumio standard release cycle. You can find all the informations on the following link:

MYvolumio.org – This is where you login on MyVolumio

MYVOLUMIO 101 FORUM THREAD – Refer to this thread to stay up to date with everything regarding MyVolumio and to download the current release

MYVOLUMIO BETA VOUCHER CODES – Check this periodically for 2 months of free MyVolumio Service

MYVOLUMIO FAQs – Everything you want to know about MyVolumio

MYVOLUMIO TECHNICAL OVERVIEW – For the Geek in you, see how we developed MyVolumio

We really hope you will enjoy MyVolumio as much as we enjoyed developing it.

A new era for Volumio has just started…

The post MyVolumio: the new Audiophile cloud echosystem for Music Lovers appeared first on Volumio.