Tip of the day: Use Sense to play through phones, tablets and computers.

[Stephen Healy]

Hi everyone,

A common feature request we have had is the ability to use Sense to play music from your Innuos system to smart devices such as phones, tablets, and computers. This has the benefit of then being relayed through to other devices like bluetooth headphones, desktop speakers, or even TV AV systems.

The good news is that this is already possible! Any device capable of running Squeeze will appear as an endpoint in Sense. Furthermore, this will perform much better than UPnP.

For iOS users, you can install SqueezePad to turn your iOS device into a Sense endpoint.
For Android users, you can use SqueezePlayer to turn your Android device into a Sense endpoint (also available on TVs running Android, such as Sony and Philips!)
For Windows desktop users, you can use Squeeze-LX to turn your computer into a Sense endpoint.

Whilst not an 'official' solution, these work very well and on my Windows desktop I personally have been using this method to use Sense (running in a browser) to play my library of music to a compact headphone setup where I do not have space for HiFi components, but still want to utilise the Sense UI for my library.



This is more a tip of convenience rather than outright high-fidelity - dropping in an Innuos streamer will sound better than a PC of course, but in some situations where is not critical and you just want the convenience/luxury of using Sense in a new set of scenarios, then this is useful to know.

If you have any experience with any other apps or devices to achieve similar results, please share below!

 

[mikehughescq]

Er, yes, but you do have to pay for Squeezepad.

 

[Stephen Healy]

Er, yes, but you do have to pay for Squeezepad.

As is so often the case for anything Apple vs Android on the App store!

 

[guardajoias]

For Mac OS one can use either the local player included with Lyrion Music Server, or SqueezePlay.

For iOS and iPadOS As far as I know, Squeezepad is for iPadOS only and does not work on iOS (iPhones). It is also quite old and has not been updated in (7?) years. iPeng does not seem to be actively developed either but is still more modern and works on both iPad and iPhone. The issue though is that although iPeng (and I assume Squeezepad) can indeed act as a local player and also then send the music to Airplay devices, in practice it is cumbersome and unstable.

Cumbersome because for the device running iPeng as player to appear in the Sense menu, the iPeng app has to be running in the foreground or playing music. So either you use another device (computer, other phone etc) to control Sense and select the iPhone/iPad, or you launch some music on iPeng first and then switch to Sense to change what is being played. It works, but not terribly convenient.

Unstable: if further sending the music to some speakers via Airplay, the connection, in my experience, tends to be unstable, even when Airplay is stable when using say Apple Music. A much better solution for Airplay speakers or DACs is to use the Airplay Bridge plugin on the Innuos Server/Player and send the music directly to the Airplay receiver (but iPhone and iPad cannot be Airplay receivers, although recent MacBooks can). This is very stable with Apple HomePods for example.

Hopefully on the horizon for the future: an integrated Airplay Bridge, similar to what you did for UPnP, and separately a local player for Sense...

 

[mikehughescq]

I’d tried iPeng previously and…. no-one in their right mind would.

Squeezeplay? Well putting aside the cost one can only hope Innuos finally grab this nettle as it could politely be described as “20th century”.

 

[webster]

Maybe I'm missing something here but I find Squeeze Player for Android great for my purposes which is to listen to music through bluetooth earbuds late at night.
I'm delighted to have my complete library (including Qobuz & all playlists) available through the excellent Sense app via smartphone.
Ok there's a one-off charge for the Squeeze Player app but the cost is so miniscule in the scheme of things it barely warrants a mention.
Up until now I'd been using BubbleUPnP which is ok but did not access any playlists created in Sense and accessing my Qobuz library was also more complicated.
Thanks for the tip @Stephen Healy

 

[Stephen Healy]

First and foremost we are about audiophile performance in your main system, so development to turn mobile devices into 'Innuos endpoints' is quite shift in strategy direction to make us more about a multiroom ecosystem. It takes our development efforts down quite a different road.
Regarding Squeezeplay costs, I would echo the comment from @webster that it is quite a small one-off cost for lifetime access considering the only other app you can really do this with is Roon which has quite a different (monthly) price implication.

 

[mikehughescq]

I guess my point about cost needs clarification. I’ve no objection to paying for apps but when one does so one expects something better than a 20th century interface which doesn’t score highly on UI, accessibility nor usability. The thing would be required to do one thing and it does that one thing okay-ish but no more. It looks put together by amateurs and gives no real sense that you’re getting any value through paying.

Now, I would never pay for Roon because, firstly, my experience has been that Sense sounds better and, secondly, whilst Sense doesn’t offer the same functionality as Roon it offers far more than one might expect for free and rather makes one question what one might be paying for with Roon. I also think Roon will slowly be squeezed out as more and more manufacturers produce their own version of Sense.

Not sure I accept that it’s a huge pivot for Innuos as an unavoidable reality. People want to be able to play ripped CDs, Qobuz, Tidal et al on their living room hifi but this is the 21st century. Most people listen to music on the move and, if they’ve. built an ecosystem at home then their is a clear logic in being able to access that on the move or just when moving from room to room. Plenty of people with more money than me will build proper multi room. I don’t want real multi-room. I don’t even want a second system. I just want, from time to time, to be able to play music from my ecosystem on my iPad when I’m working in the dining room or working in the study or in severe back pain and on the bed etc, As a manufacturer you can’t assume I’ll pay a fiver for a half arsed app like Squeezeplay and there comes a point when, as all manufacturers realise there is a gap here they need to fill, that I simply go search for a system which can give me that.

 

[Stephen Healy]

As a manufacturer you can’t assume I’ll pay a fiver for a half arsed app like Squeezeplay

I'm not expecting this at all Mike - this article is entirely at users discretion for an interesting way to utilise Sense UI on different devices not previously considered and outside of the main Innuos 'feature set' (remember, the idea of this article is so that you DON'T have to use the UI of Squeezepad etc which just run in the background).
Again, these apps are free to Android or Windows users, I'm afraid I can't account for the premium that comes with iOS app. I do think it would be very novel if Sense app could include local rendering on a smart device as this is a very rare feature.