Roon ARC has forever changed how and where we enjoy our favorite music by transforming our Roon library into a bespoke streaming service that’s ready to go anywhere our adventures may take us. Today, we’re excited to introduce full CarPlay and Android Auto support for Roon ARC!
Ready to hit the road? Your Roon library is too
As soon as we began work on Roon ARC, we were eager to see Roon’s features come to life on our car’s display screen – and so were all of you. Now, just a few months into ARC’s existence, that day has arrived.
Nothing makes the road more exciting than our favorite music. CarPlay and Android Auto fully integrate Roon’s browsing and discovery features into your car’s controls for safe and easy playback.
Now you can cruise your Roon library, dig into your daily mixes as you drive, check out featured playlists, explore new releases, hit repeat on recently played favs, and much more just by tapping a few buttons from your car’s controls. With Roon along for the ride, every car trip drops right into the groove.
How to use Roon ARC in CarPlay
We’ve made accessing Roon ARC in CarPlay as easy as possible so you can focus on the road while Roon provides the soundtrack.
If you’re an Android user, you’ll find similar setup tips in our dedicated Android Auto blog.
To begin, make sure you have Roon ARC. Visit the App Store to download the app.
Once CarPlay is set up and your phone is synced to your vehicle’s interface, you’ll see the Roon ARC app on your display.
Just tap the Roon ARC icon, and you’re on your way.
Explore a new road to music discovery
CarPlay and Android Auto support has maintained the pole position of most requested feature since we waved the starting flag on Roon ARC.
This release reflects our commitment to listening to your needs and delivering the features that matter most to our customers. We can’t wait for CarPlay and Android Auto for Roon ARC to transform your driver’s seat into your new favorite listening chair.
To enjoy CarPlay and Android Auto for Roon ARC, you first need to download the app. Download it now from the App Store or Play Store.
The Roon team has been working on improving the search engine throughout 2022, and last week, we rolled out a whole new architecture for search.
It’s been just about a year since I last wrote about search, so I figured it was a good time to provide an update on what’s been going on behind the scenes.
The Roon team has been working on improving the search engine throughout 2022, and last week, we rolled out a new architecture for search. If you are running Roon 2.0, you have been using the new stuff for several days.
Previously, the cloud performed a search of TIDAL/Qobuz libraries and the Core performed a search of your personal library, then merged the results.
Now, the Core gathers potential matches for the search query and submits them to a cloud service. The cloud service then searches the TIDAL/Qobuz libraries if needed, ranks and merges the results, and returns the final list to the app.
This change will allow us to deliver better results and improve the search engine more quickly. For more information, keep on reading.
Automated Testing Tools
One of the challenges of improving a search engine is understanding the effects of each change that we make. A change that improves one search might accidentally make other searches worse. In order to make progress, we need to be able to test our search system and understand the intended and unintended consequences of each change.
We introduced an automated testing system in 2022 to help us with that. This system allows us to test thousands of searches in the cloud without using the Roon Core. Our test infrastructure will help us make sure we’re not making things worse as we continue to improve the search engine.
Shorter Cycle Time for Improvements
By moving the search engine to the cloud, we can release improvements without shipping new versions of the Roon Core and apps. This reduces the time it takes to deliver improvements to our users, and allows us to iterate quickly on specific issues when they are reported.
Metrics
While our primary goal is to make our users happy, it’s also helpful to have objective signals that show we are making things better. The new search system includes an array of metrics that allow us to monitor search results quality on an ongoing basis. This helps us see if our changes are helping, and also helps us catch any accidental issues that might degrade the quality of search results for our users.
As an example, the “Average Click Position” metric measures the average position where a user clicks when they select an instant search result. For example, a result of ‘1’ means that the user selected the first item in the list.
These are the results from last week’s rollout. You can see that the number dropped quickly around the time of our rollout, which shows that our changes were an improvement.
Smarter Ranking
One of the challenges with the old search system was merging lists that had been ranked separately in the Core and in the cloud. It was difficult to compare scores from different ranking systems, so we relied on heuristics that tried to balance the ranks, popularity information, and text match accuracy.
This often led to less-than-ideal results, and troubleshooting issues was time-consuming because we had to replicate each user’s library in-house in order to see the issues. Since search ranking is now performed in the cloud in a unified way, this class of tricky issues has disappeared.
More Powerful Algorithms
Today, state-of-the-art search systems use Machine Learning to deliver results. It was difficult to use these techniques in the old Roon Core, so one of the main goals of the re-architecture was to enable this.
In the future, we will be able to tailor results to individual users. For example, a Beatles fan typing “John” into the search box probably expects “John Lennon” to be the top result, while a Jazz listener might expect “John Coltrane”.
This will also enable the implementation of modern search techniques like spelling corrections, search suggestions, semantic search, and gradient boosting, none of which are practical within the Roon Core.
Instant Search Improvements
After deploying the new architecture internally in September, we started the process of tuning it to perform better than the old system. We focused on improving the instant search dropdown, making sure that fewer characters are required to reach the desired result, and that the results continue to feel sensible as more characters are entered.
In addition to automated testing, we have a weekly review process where the product and search teams come together to examine a set of 50 representative searches and discuss how the results changed because of the previous week’s work. This helps us understand the tradeoffs and make decisions that prioritize the user experience.
Dozens of Smaller Improvements
As part of this work, we made many of smaller improvements to the search system. Shorter queries like “john” or “pink” should now return more coherent results. The system is not directly auto-correcting misspellings, but it is more tolerant of misspelled terms in multi-word searches. It is also better at prioritizing exact matches, deduplicating similar results, and choosing the best version of an album or track when there are multiple versions available.
While things have definitely gotten better in the past year, 2022 was mostly about laying the groundwork. We plan to make faster and more visible progress in 2023 and beyond.
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I want to thank everyone for their patience as we work on improving the search engine, and for all the feedback in last year’s thread. It has been very helpful in understanding our users’ perspectives, and we hope you will continue to use our product and provide feedback in the future.
We are delighted to introduce Roon 2.0 and Roon ARC – our biggest release yet and something that will change how you use Roon forever.
Roon ARC
Roon ARC is a brand new app that gives you the freedom to experience your entire Roon library – and Roon’s most powerful features – without compromise, wherever you are in the world. Right from your mobile device.
Whether you’re working out at the gym, heading into the office, or traveling thousands of miles from home – ARC gives you remote access to your complete library of artists, albums, playlists, tags, and streams. No more settling for second-best from streaming apps. ARC makes everywhere feel like home.
Powered by your Roon core, Roon ARC becomes your very own, custom-built streaming service. Explore and expand your entire music library, immerse yourself in new discoveries, access key Roon features, and listen in the best possible sound quality – all from a single, beautiful mobile app. All free and exclusive to Roon subscribers.
Along with additional enhancements, like native support for Apple Silicon, Roon 2.0 brings an amazing music experience to more people, on more platforms. Read all about ARC and Roon 2.0 over on our Community.
When you log in to Roon, you’ll be prompted to update your Roon Core to the new Roon 2.0. Please don’t forget to update your Roon Remote on iOS and Android devices before accepting the update on your Core.
To use Roon outside of your home you will need to download the Roon ARC mobile app and connect it to your Roon Core. Roon ARC is separate to and different from Roon Remote that you use at home, so even if you already have Roon Remote on your mobile device, you’ll need to download Roon ARC to access Roon on the go. More information on getting started with ARC can be found on our Help Center.
If you have any questions or need some support, you can contact our dedicated Customer Success team via our Community.
It was great to be back at High End Munich for the first time since 2019, seeing a huge array of different products and of course getting to see some old and new faces.
Because of the pandemic, we haven’t been able to be part of this incredible show so we certainly made up for the lost time in doing so.
With four expo halls across the ground floor filled with exhibitor booths, along with more exhibitor rooms and enclosed demonstration rooms, it was an event that was busy with partners, press, and audiophiles.
Roon has grown vastly since our last visit to High End Munich, with many brands and devices now partnering with us to bring music fanatics a tailored, immersive experience.
In fact, Roon has over 75 certified partners, with many coming in between the last event and now. In the last five months alone, 40 devices have been added to our partner family, without a face-to-face conversation being had.
Importantly, Roon has changed in that time as well.
Our 1.8 release last year gave users a completely new look and feel, more context and meaning to their music through Valence, powerful filtering of your music library through Focus, a reimagination of classical music and a tailor-made experience made with users at the forefront.
Conversations that were had with partners and Roon users typified exactly why we’ll continue to provide music fanatics with the best tools for an optimized listening experience.
You can see a round up of our experience and glimpse at a selection of the devices we saw on display from our partners.
Here at Roon, my first mission is to get to know you all better, so I’m carving out some time each day to chat directly with users. I would love to pick your brains about your music listening habits, how Roon fits into your world, and where you’d like the product to go.
A bit about myself—I’m an American living in Portugal. Professionally, I come from a music, tech, and audio engineering background, having worked in recording studios, small music startups, as well as music publishing.
Musically, I’m into everything from jazz to J Dilla but electronic music and indie rock are my mainstays. Right now I’m listening to lots of Mark Kozelek and Hood. After hours I love to cook (big stew guy), make tunes, and nerd out on synths and samplers.
I want to hear from you, so, I’m all ears. Please feel free to book some time with me here.
With our Fall 2021 release, you’ll see some great improvements to Roon, but the big news is that we’re rolling out the first of a series of fun web-based tools to our community of music fanatics. The goal of these tools is to let you contribute your expertise to Valence, our cloud-based data system, making the Roon experience richer for the whole community!
Art Director
Everyone benefits from better-looking artist photos and band logos, so we’ve created Art Director, the first in a series of fun web-based tools that puts Roon users in control of how artist images are shown in Roon. Using Art Director, you can adjust the positioning of artist photos, upload your own band logos and images, and vote for your favorites. By doing so, you’ll be helping the whole Roon community and making perfect artist images a reality.
How does Art Director work?
When you visit our new Valence page and select “Contribute”, you sign in with your Roon account and select Art Director. You’ll be presented with images from the Valence database that need your artistic eye. If you want to adjust images for a specific artist, just type their name into the search box. From there, you’ll see all of the adjustments contributed by other users, as well as any images that still need your direction.
Art Director allows us to be far more dynamic with the images used in Roon, giving us the ability to adjust photos to fit into specific shapes. For example, you can adjust the main image that is displayed at the top of an artist page, as well as their circular ‘avatar’ that is shown on the Artists page and within search lists. This means no matter where an artist image is displayed in Roon, it will always look fantastic. If you have a band logo or a photo of an artist that you love, you can also upload it to Art Director to be featured in Roon.
You and the rest of the Roon community can also vote for your favorite image on an artist’s page. Just click on the heart next to any adjusted image; this is how Valence decides which images are shown in Roon. As the Roon community begins to vote and adjust artist photos, you’ll always see the best possible images in Roon, and they’ll constantly improve based on the efforts of our community.
Local image edits are still possible, but if you have previously spent time improving artist images in your own library, you can now make these changes in Art Director to update your library while improving the Roon experience for everyone.
To start contributing, just sign into Valence using your Roon account details at valence.roonlabs.com
Playlists by Roon
Our team lives for music, and it’s our goal to create the best experiences for other music lovers. In addition to Roon itself, we do this by collaborating with artists, our community, and with our own music team to bring you editorial content and playlists that we think you’ll enjoy. Over the past year we’ve worked with artists including Patricia Barber, Daymé Arocena, AHI, and Stephen Moccio to bring you exclusive interviews and editorial, as well as producing weekly playlists with a particular genre or theme.
Up until now, the playlists we have created have only been available on TIDAL and Qobuz, and haven’t been accessible in Roon. In our latest release, you can now access everything our music team has curated, directly from your Home screen on both streaming platforms.
Smarter search
Back in the summer, we released the first of many updates to improve how you search for music in Roon. In this update we’ve taken the next step and completely overhauled the search function to make it easier than ever to find the music you’re looking for.
Now, when you search for music in Roon you’ll see more accurate and concise results (with fewer inaccuracies!), especially when it comes to your library content. Roon will be able to detect when you’re searching for classical music, presenting composers and compositions first. We’ve also overhauled text filtering across the app, for more consistent handling of special characters and punctuation.
The updates we’ve made to search this year are just the beginning. Search has been a top priority for us this year, and led by our data team, it will continue to be a focus into 2022 and beyond.
Rock-solid streaming
We’ve completely overhauled Roon’s buffering and caching infrastructure for playing streaming content. The new implementation is designed to be less demanding when interacting with your network and internet connection, making streaming music both more stable and less intensive on your Roon Core. This should minimize playback interruptions from TIDAL and Qobuz, as well as making it possible for people with slower internet connections and networks to have a better and more reliable experience while using Roon. It will also ensure your Roon Core is more resilient to latency issues caused by Content Delivery Networks (CDN) and the geographic distance from your source.
Easier volume limits
We’ve redesigned the Zone Settings screen so it’s even easier to set volume limits that prevent your music from getting too loud. The new design also makes it easier to configure auto-sleep functionality and other settings for your audio devices.
Other new improvements in this release include: improved iOS lockscreen control implementation, new cover art on playlist screens on mobile devices and added the album type to artist’s “Recommended albums” for easier browsing of main albums, singles, and EPs. You can see a complete list of improvements over on our Community post.
We want to thank our subscribers for everything you have done to help us improve Roon and grow our amazing community this year – we couldn’t have done it without you!
We hope you enjoy the new update and if you have any questions or need some support , you can reach out to our dedicated Customer Success & Support team via our Help Center or head over to our Community and join in the discussions with thousands of other Roon subscribers.
The gear that music fans use when they listen is – as the number of posts on our community site suggests – one of the things they’re most passionate and opinionated about. For six years, we’ve been working with nearly every audio manufacturer to make sure their products work like magic with Roon. In that time, we’ve tested, certified, and (maybe most importantly) lived with hundreds and hundreds of audio devices. From inexpensive USB DACs to the most exotic audiophile equipment on the market, we’ve literally seen it all. No person or company has had the privilege of laying hands on as much gear as we have (you have to see our test lab to believe it).
Our whole team uses Roon Ready and Roon Tested gear in real life, and we constantly switch, compare, and contrast them. Along the way, we’ve learned a huge amount about how audio products are designed. We’ve become attuned to subtle details… the things that can make one piece of gear a joy to use every day while another one collects dust on the shelf.
Over time, we’ve received more and more questions from users about which products have this or that feature, which would be better for a bedroom vs a patio, or which offers the best value at a particular price point. All that interest has inspired us to think about how to provide a new service for Roon users. Shopping for audio gear online isn’t especially easy or fun, so we decided to do for the audio shopping experience what Roon itself did for music browsing and discovery.
We’re very excited to introduce the Roon store – the only e-commerce site designed with the music lover (and Roon user) in mind.
What’s different about the Roon store? Simple: it’s focused entirely on audio equipment that works incredibly well with Roon. Every product is hand-picked for qualities that make it stand out, so you won’t be faced with a hodgepodge of all the gear on the market. If you see something in the Roon store, you can be sure we’ve lived with it and can share genuine, first-hand experience about how it fits into your listening life.
We’re starting off with just a small, curated selection of products in a single category: the all-in-one Roon Ready speaker. These are all decidedly non-traditional audio products that can be daunting to shop for, and one of the things that makes them special is how perfectly they work with Roon. Just connect them to your network and voilà … instant system.
Every product on the site is there because we think it deserves to be showcased. To that end, we’ve created content for the site ourselves, from product photographs and instructional videos to insights about features and performance. Our goal is to show – from extensive experience – what makes each of these products unique, and exactly what you can expect from them.
The Roon store has taken inspiration from the most innovative e-commerce sites out there – a focused product offering, high-quality editorial, and all the shopping convenience you could ask for. It doesn’t yet feature anything like a full range of products, but many more are coming very soon. We hope you enjoy this first step on our journey to provide you the best audio shopping experience in the world.
In our latest 1.8 release, we’re rolling out one of the Roon community’s most requested features: native control of Roon from your phone, even when the screen is locked. Alongside this, we’ve made it even easier to compare different versions of your favorite albums in Roon and expanded Roon’s exporting functionality.
Native control of Roon from your phone
You can now access essential controls natively from your Android or iOS* device without going into the Roon Remote app. Now playing information, volume, and pause and skip controls can all be controlled from your phone.
Adjusting volume this way controls the level of your audio gear connected to Roon, and respects the volume limits you’ve already set in different zones. This latest update also includes support for your mobile devices physical volume controls, so you can change the volume of your music without even looking at the screen.
On iOS, we’ve also implemented the much-requested gesture support for navigation so you can now swipe from the left or right edge of your phone screen for easy back and forward navigation.
*iOS Beta only: to use this feature, go to your Settings in Roon Remote and enable ‘Lock Screen Controls’. Find out more
Compare versions of your favorite albums
Roon’s album page has always featured a “Versions” tab where you could find other editions of an album, including those from your own music library, TIDAL, and Qobuz. In our latest update, we’ve completely redesigned this view, making it even easier to compare versions in your library and beyond. Whether you’re looking for an expanded edition with bonus tracks or want to listen to an even higher-quality version, Roon lets you do this in a couple of clicks.
Take your Roon content to services around the world
We expanded and improved Roon’s exporting functionality, so it’s easier to copy media out of Roon, or to export detailed information about your music to Excel.
For those of you who enjoy listening to your playlists on multiple streaming platforms, we’ve also worked with our friends at Soundiiz to make it easier to export playlists and other content from Roon to various music services. Our new Soundiiz export mode generates a custom CSV file for any playlists, favorites, or library content you select, which can easily be uploaded to Soundiiz and synced to TIDAL, Qobuz, or nearly any other streaming service.
Try Soundiiz Premium
To get access to all of the Soundiiz features, including the ability to transfer all of your playlists to different streaming platforms at once and to keep all of your playlists synced between different platforms, use code “ROONVIP” at checkout to get 15% off the Soundiiz Premium subscription.
Since the success of Roon 1.8 release in February, we’ve received tons of great feedback from our community which we have been using every day to make improvements to how you use and experience Roon. In fact, since 1.8 we’ve made almost 150 bug fixes and improvements to Roon, and this release is no exception.
New improvements include: a new “Date Modified” sort feature for your playlists, faster loading of your Daily Mixes, improvements to the search autocomplete user experience, high-resolution playback on supported Sonos devices and shuffling of tags that now includes playlist content from outside your library. You can see a complete list of improvements over on our Community post.
Without our community’s input, feedback and support, Roon wouldn’t be where it is today and for this we are truly grateful. If you have any suggestions, questions or you just want to come and say hi, you can contact our dedicated Customer Success & Support team via our Help Center or Community.
From our humble beginnings – the debut of the first Roon Ready network streamer (Auralic Aries) at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2016 – the ecosystem of products compatible with Roon is now the largest collection of high-resolution audio devices in the world.
Roon is compatible with over a thousand individual products from nearly 200 brands, including premium audio heavyweights like Bowers & Wilkins, Bluesound, Denon, Devialet, Harman, KEF, McIntosh, and Naim Audio, and also a wide range of manufacturers of smart devices and DIY products. Thanks in part to that focus on interoperability, Roon has become an essential component in the listening rooms of recording artists, producers, record labels, music collectors, and audiophiles.
The cadence of new Roon Ready certifications has increased tenfold since 2019. Back then, just a handful of new products were certified each month, but in the first half of this year we’ve already announced over 100 new Roon Ready and Roon Tested devices. Forty new brands have submitted products for certification in that time, including key product ranges and new launches from notable audio manufacturers like Arcam, Astell & Kern, Cambridge Audio, and JBL.
We set out to create an ecosystem with something for every use case covering a wide range of prices, form factors, functions, and features. Now, Roon really does play with everything – audio products as varied as network streamers, soundbars, DACs, wireless speakers, all-in-one systems, and A/V receivers – at prices ranging from $100 to $100,000. With support for high-resolution PCM, DSD, MQA, and extensive DSP, Roon offers the highest possible audio performance at any price.
Recent announcements about lossless and high-resolution streaming from Apple Music and others have kindled new interest in high-quality audio. For listeners who want to go beyond their mobile phone with Bluetooth headphones, Roon provides the largest and highest-performance ecosystem for listening to high-resolution music on the widest range of audio equipment.
In addition to Roon Ready products, there are hundreds of Roon Tested products that bring the Roon experience to the rest of your home. Support for Sonos, AirPlay, and Google Cast streaming devices – as well as USB and HDMI receivers and DACs – means that Roon helps you get the best performance out of virtually any audio device.
To see the full list of Roon partners and certified products, check out roonlabs.com/partners
Our aim has always been to make it as simple as possible for you to find the music you love and play it on all of your audio gear. That’s why in our summer release, we’ve pushed the boundaries of Valence even further to improve how you search and discover music in Roon. Valence combines the expertise of our community with modern data science and machine learning to deliver a music player that understands your listening preferences like no other.
In the latest update to Roon 1.8, we’ve implemented some exciting new features, including personalized daily mixes, intelligent search, and a totally new TIDAL interface to improve the way you discover and listen to music in Roon.
Your Daily Mixes
Some days you want a little extra inspiration in the morning. For TIDAL and Qobuz users, every day Roon will deliver you six new Daily Mixes designed to give you something new to explore. Each playlist is themed on an artist from your listening history and includes 25 picks from artists you love and some you have yet to discover.
Created using a completely new Valence algorithm, the genres and artists in your playlists will change daily but you can expect a wide variety of music that reflects your library, listening habits, and what you’ve been playing lately.
To make it easy to find music to suit your mood, we’ve named each mix after a “headliner” artist featuring music from them and similar artists and genres we think you’ll find interesting.
Find a playlist you enjoy? Save it so you can listen to it later.
Evolving search
Over the last year, we’ve doubled the Roon team to over 50 people across five continents, which allows us to be more ambitious in the scope and number of engineering projects running in parallel. One great example is search, which is now being improved on an ongoing basis by our data team. This release features the first of many planned search developments: an improved user interface with predictive auto-complete.
Previously, when typing a search, Roon would auto-complete using only words from your library, but now it matches people and music across all known artists, albums, tracks, genres, composers, and compositions.
Valence plays a big part in helping Roon make the right suggestions to you – predicting what you’re looking for as it’s being typed – whether the music is in your library or not. By clicking on any of the recommendations, you’ll get taken directly to what you are looking for, making it easier and faster to get to the music you want to play.
Your core now preserves your search history with your profile, so it’s easy to get back to the music you were looking for, even if it’s on a different day or device.
All-new TIDAL experience
We’ve worked closely with our friends at TIDAL to design a completely new TIDAL experience in Roon. The page has been redesigned to include many of TIDAL’s latest features and content, including top charts, TIDAL staff picks and latest MQA playlists and more. As well as all of this, TIDAL’s popular “Mixes for you” feature is now available for you to enjoy in Roon!
We hope you enjoy the new update and look forward to hearing what you think. For more information on the new release, head over to our Community.
