7 ms·
So here is the thing I struggle with. I have a NAS. On it is my media (music, videos, photos) collection. I do not have a subscription to Apple Music, or the re
by myrandomcomment 6y ago
So here is the thing I struggle with. I have a NAS. On it is my media (music, videos, photos) collection. I do not have a subscription to Apple Music, or the reset of the streaming services and I not want one. So how do I play my own music collection with this?
Right now to do this I have an AppleTV on every TV. I have an app on the AppleTV called MrMC which is basically a paid for port of Kodi for the AppleTV. The MrMC app can mount the NFS file share and play my music just fine. The AppleTV is plugged into and HDMI splitter that strips audio and outputs it to an amp which goes to my speakers. This just works, and I can remote control it with my an app on my iPhone.
Given that the HomePod will not be able to access my music collection, it is useless.
I would be happy with the HomePod being able to steam music from an open Music app on a Mac somewhere. I have enough spare Macs that it would be simple to just run Music on it (which mounts the network share.) But of course, I would be wasting power.
Oh well.
It would also be really nice if the AppleTV would just support SMB again.
- thebean11 6y agoI'd be sort of surprised if you couldn't "cast" arbitrary audio from a phone or laptop to the homepod.
- turtlebits 6y agoYou can, at least from any Airplay 2 supported device. Mac, iOS, just change the output setting. Audio will sync up with video as well. Stereo pair only works with iOS and iTunes on Mac. (Not system audio)
- aplummer 6y agoIt works with the TV app too FYI
- ndaiger 6y agoYou can make it work with iTunes Match. It will upload all your music (it's not just filename or metadata matching, apparently it uses audio fingerprints). Then you can play your own stuff without needing an Apple Music subscription. It's $25/year. I moved to Apple music a while ago, but iTunes Match worked great for me before that.
- thdrdt 6y agoEhm $25/y to play your own music!? I don't get it.
- _ph_ 6y agoIt is a cloud storage service. You get all your music stored in the cloud. You always can use AirPlay to play your music on Homepods, if you like.
- myrandomcomment 6y agoIt has a limit of 100K tracks. I have 97,760 right now. I worked at a music store in HS & College so I managed to acquire quite a collection. At Christmas the employee discount basically reached 75% so if I even thought I might want one song, buying the album was a no-brain. At one point I had an 8-bay SCSI tower with CD-ROMs in it and wrote a script to rip all the CDs. It took a few weeks :) In the last few years I have started on the process of IDing things that where ripped at lower quality and re-ripping in as Apple Lossless.
- aikinai 6y agoI had no idea this was still a thing! Does it work well? And what does it do if it can’t find a match? Will it let you play your unique song?
- rsanheim 6y agoStill works for me. If it can’t find a match it will just upload your mp3s to apples servers and then I presume they can stream to a HomePod. I mostly use Roon or my phone to control my music, so I haven’t really tested the match stuff in a long time.
- aikinai 6y agoGreat, thanks for the answer. I'll try out iTunes Match then. It sounds like exactly what I need.
- Dig1t 6y agoRandom aside: the VLC app will also play music/movies from NFS/SMB and is an overall great app on Apple TV.
- computermagic 6y agoCan HomePods only play via Apple Music? How about using Plex and getting that to play thru whatever device you want? Disclaimer: I don't use Plex for music or have any Apple smart home devices. Just trying to throw out an idea that maybe possible. I use Plex with my NAS for video content and stream it to all my devices.
- _ph_ 6y agoThe "big" HomePods do support Airplay, I would assume the HomePod mini does as well. But indeed, if you have AppleMusic or iTunes Match, they become more useful.
- ihuman 6y agoIt supports the same sources as the big one, including airplay https://www.apple.com/homepod-mini/specs/ https://www.apple.com/homepod-mini/specs/ (Audio Sources)
- timothyduong 6y agoHow is MrMC these days? I stopped using it about a year ago and migrated to Infuse as the MrMC UI was gross. Infuse is missing the sort-ability of KODI (e.g. sorting by Director, or by rating), does MrMC have these features?
- myrandomcomment 6y agoI have not looked at Infuse. Thanks, I am going to check it out. As to your feature ask, I never looked...one sec....Title, Year, Date Added, Last Played, Rating, My Rating, MPAA Rating, Duration, Data Added. I was using Kodi on Intel Sticks before this (Win10). I wanted to switch to the AppleTV because it is simpler and supports Netflix, Amazon, etc. as an app (Needed keyboard, mouse on PC). I do not want my TV connected to the internet all so using the build in apps was not an option.
- turtlebits 6y agoThe HomePod can act as audio out for any Mac/iOS device. The music app on Mac can also stream directly to HomePod. (Or you can send system audio to it as well)
- myrandomcomment 6y agoCorrect, but can I have Music open on a Mac with a shared library and then say to the HomePod "Play ZZY" will it be able to locate that on the share and play it? If I cannot talk to it and have it find the shared music then what is the point?
- thirdsun 6y agoI would assume that it takes your local iTunes library into account, but apparently it doesn't: https://www.reddit.com/r/HomePod/comments/advq56/cannot_make_siri_play_music_from_my_itunes/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HomePod/comments/advq56/cannot_make...
- steve_adams_86 6y agoCorrect me if I’m wrong, but I believe audio out for Mac still doesn’t support stereo pairing?
- Whatarethese 6y agoClearly you are not the customer that Apple wants and honestly I dont blame them. You probably represent the .001% of potential customers.
- seabrookmx 6y agoNAS -> Plex -> Nest Audio (or other Google speakers) would achieve this. If your NAS doesn't support Plex, you could easily run it on a Raspberry Pi if it's just for music. You'd have to look at alternatives for the media server (Plex) if you want to use a Homepod though .. I'm pretty sure Plex doesn't support AirPlay. If it's just wireless audio you're after and not a "smart speaker" then there's some not-too-tricky ways to do this in the DIY space. snapcast for instance supports AirPlay and might integrate nicely into your current setup: https://github.com/badaix/snapcast https://github.com/badaix/snapcast
- colordrops 6y agoIt mostly works fine on a Raspberry Pi even for video. Though I'm not streaming 8k stuff, I've only got a 1080p TV.
- bravura 6y agoI have nice speakers I don't want to change. I used to control spotify and soundcloud through them using chromecast audio which is discontinued and the second one I bought off ebay doesn't work. I am open to playing MP3s off my NAS. I would even consider bluetooth since I rarely fiddle with the playlist. What is the best way to remote control a device that is wired to my mixer (XLR or 1/4 in or 1/8in jack)
- kingosticks 6y agoHave you looked at Mopidy?
- seabrookmx 6y agoDid you click my snapcast link? It natively supports Spotify connect and Airplay, so you'd connect your mixer to the Pi's 3.5mm jack (or use a supported DAC). You can also fashion a Chromecast audio out of a normal (video) Chromecast and an HDMI->audio adapter if you're looking to preserve the same experience.
- coolspot 6y agoMaybe plex + homeassistant + daap-server will cover your use case. https://homeassistant.io https://homeassistant.io https://github.com/johnpdowling/custom_components/tree/master/forked-daapd https://github.com/johnpdowling/custom_components/tree/maste...
- sevencolors 6y agoThere's a project called HomeBridge that lets other wifi/smart devices be seen on HomeKit and then can be controlled. Lots of user created plugins for a variety of things https://github.com/homebridge/homebridge https://github.com/homebridge/homebridge
- 2fast4you 6y agoThis works really well with Home Assistant
- iamatworknow 6y agoThanks for mentioning this. I've been using a HomePod/HomeKit for a while already, but was curious if there was a way I could get my cheapo IP cameras' feeds into the Home app. I was using Zoneminder, but that was kind of overkill and a pain to use for my use case. After seeing your comment I setup HomeBridge and the homebridge-camera-ffmpeg plugin in about 10 minutes, and now I've got what I wanted. Thanks!
- opless 6y agoI also hooked my CCTV through homebridge recently with the aformentioned plugins ... it was a bonus, because with IFTTT effectively going payware, I needed to move my automation somewhere else
- acolumb 6y agoYou can use HomePods as dedicated outputs for your Apple TV 4th gen or newer. Can also work alongside your amp. Also, as stated in earlier comments, you’ll be able to use AirPlay to stream anything from your NAS via an iOS/Mac device. The only feature you’ll lose is the ability to say “hey Siri, play song x” AirPlay is lossless, too.
- myrandomcomment 6y agoThe only feature I care sorting is "Hey Siri play X" in the framework of the Music is on the NAS. So yah, out of luck. The current setup works very well, except I have to us a physical thing (remote or remote app on iPhone) to play something.
- acolumb 6y agoAh. Then there really isn't any completely voice activated solution on the market that can sort your needs. They're all so cloud-focused.
- fudged71 6y agoYou should check out Roon https://roonlabs.com/ https://roonlabs.com/
- b34r 6y agoI wouldn’t be surprised if Plex eventually supported the HomePod now that there’s an API
- NewOrderNow 6y agoNAS TO CAST. I came up with the name. You do the engineering.
- leemailll 6y agoIf you can run docker, try https://docs.linuxserver.io/images/docker-daapd https://docs.linuxserver.io/images/docker-daapd. It actually from https://ejurgensen.github.io/forked-daapd/ https://ejurgensen.github.io/forked-daapd/ It can connect to all the airplay-able devices in my home, and the remote app on iOS can be configured to control it, but I think one still needs to access its webpage to set which airplay device to use.
- zaksoup 6y agoI use AirPlay to Sonos from my DS219 running Plex. Should work just fine with HomePods
- locusm 6y agoGet some HeOS speakers, they support all the sources you need including network shares from a NAS.
- alelos 6y agoYou should look into Logitech Media Server (open source with community forks/support). You can install it on your NAS, I have it on a synology. It also supports syncing music with multiple devices at a fraction, if any, of sonos or similar costs. There is a plethora of plugins available including an AirPlay bridge to stream to your Apple tv. You can use the excellent iPeng app (paid but recommended) as a phone remote (and even a source with an IAP). I use the LMS ecosystem to stream from my NAS to my linux workstation (using squeezelite), to my tv/speakers on an nvidia shield, to my phone via iPeng and to another chromecast.
- dan_hawkins 6y agoOn Synology you can install iTunes Server [0] and then just use native AppleTV's music player to access your library. [0] https://www.synology.com/en-global/dsm/packages/iTunesServer https://www.synology.com/en-global/dsm/packages/iTunesServer