Rack Installation

Feedback
1

Just received my box yesterday, am beyond pumped.

First Impressions: the internals are tidy and logical with lots of air-flow and plenty of spare space for later card-additions. More plugs for add-on boards, might have been good, so add-ons would be easier to insert for non-technical users, but I am nit-picking. Great job!

The front fan exit-hole is too close to the (unfortunately-oversized) facia rack-flange, see installation photo of my typical rack. This means that half of the front fan, pushes air into the rack’s frame.

I have my rack suspended from the ceiling in an air-conditioned closet, which makes it harder for me to determine if this fan-hole misalignment will make any appreciable difference to cooling performance. I did note the the thing is nice and quiet though, that is very refreshing.

Other nit-picky things I noted:

  1. Facia logo looks a bit tacky, needs to be much smaller and use thicker ink. It likely wipes off with spit.
  2. Laser-cut panels can have rounded inside and outside corners, for no extra charge – paint, dust and fingers do not like corners.
  3. Can you use flat-head micro-LEDs in facia – more modern look.
  4. Zone status LED’s are not much use in a closet, furniture or a rack-closet. They should be extra-bright, and located on the future wiif/cat keypads, instead. Perhaps remove these LED’s future facia plates, to save cost.
  5. The mobile app software cannot find the Amplipi. This may be a mDNS issue, as I am using a Mac Pro and my bootcamp partition is dead, (thanks to Windows 11).
  6. Groove Salad will not stay persistent when changing tabs in the webapp. I have yet to get other internet radio URLs to work, likely because I’m using the wrong URLs – the input dialogues do not have links to streaming-URL and station logo repositories,yet. I suggest this be made a priority issue.
  7. The Mute All title-bar thingy, looks like a temporary solution, until someone finds somewhere less awkward to stick it.
  8. Plex/Plexamp is not yet working for me, I have PMS running on Shield, Synology NAS, HTPC and my currently-dead Mac Pro bootcamp partition. I suspect I need to use a 3rd-party app to broadcast some kind of continually-running “Plexamp stream”, on my LAN, and then insert its URL into the UUID dialogue.
  9. I am still struggling to figure out how to add my Spotify account information, via the webapp. Maybe this functionality is only in the mobile app, which does not yet connect.
  10. This box has SO MUCH POTENTIAL, it hurts the brain how freakin’ wonderful it is going to be. In the meanwhile, perhaps it should only be sold to pro-installers and kind-hearted developers – it may not be friendly enough, YET, for those who are not tech-savvy…?
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1 Like
2

On the next run of facia panels, please check to see if you need to avoid having them bow outward if punch-cut. The facia could also use thinner metal plate if it properly touches the box all around. The rack-flanges should perhaps be those little L-brackets that screw onto the sides of the box – because rack-tabs are a liability if not rack-mounting. Also, when they laser-cut the screen cut-out, they could give it a bevelled edge – little details like that make the box look more expensive, without adding cost. If you ever put a USB socket or chip-slot, in the front facia, please make it recessed – so users can close their cabinet doors.

3

This is all really good feedback. Thanks for taking the time to write it up.

I’d like to help you with your initial issues with Spotify. First sanity check, do you have a premium account? AmpliPi like many other Spotify capable audio devices requires a premium account. The feature that is enabled with premium is called Spotify connect and allows the Spotify app on desktop and mobile to play audio on external devices. If you have Spotify premium those devices are detected on the network using mdns and selectable near the bottom of the Spotify app next to the volume. Here’s more info on Spotify connect: Spotify Connect - Spotify

To make the AmpliPi Spotify device show up. Go to the gear icon → inputs and create a new Spotify input, with a name like AmpliPi or something else. Once you have created it select it as an input to one of the 4 audio sources. You should now be able to find AmpliPi or whatever you named it in the device selector. Go ahead and play some music.

4

Lincoln, you are very kind to help me. Thank you. If I can get my mDNS issue sorted, I think other issues may go away.

Perhaps the biggest clue is the fact that the Amplipi mobile app says “No AmpliPis Detected!”. (Amplipis sounds like some kind of catheter device. Maybe you should have used “No AmpliPi is detected!”, or an apostrophe, as in AmpliPi**’**s…?)

My Eero mesh router provides WiFi to my phone, and the Eero router IP is 192.168.7.1. I was impressed that the Amplipi’s front panel displayed 192.168.7.235, immediately after it was turned on. Most devices default to 192.168.1.xxx.

The 192.168.7.235 address shows up on my MacPro, using LanScan, but not using the native Finder app. LanScan also shows the AmpliPi has “amplipi” as its mNDS name, with ports 22, 80 and 5001. However, LanScan is unable to find an SMB name or a SMB domain for the AmpliPi, which seems a bit unusual.

If the Ampilpi is running its own Wifi-SSID, I suspect it uses 2.4GHz-only, which necessitates disabling the 5GHz band on mesh routers. This is a common problem with smart home devices. If this is the case, you might add this note into your Getting Started doc. Yet, even with 5GHz-disabled, my phone sees no Amplipi-SSID, so this is not likely the problem, right? The AmpliPi shows up as a LAN-connected device in the phone’s Eero app though, but it always seems to be idle.

Meanwhile, I struggle to find local FM-radio station streamURL’s – they are always hidden, quite deliberately, inside the ratio-station’s website-player. When do you anticipate that the StreamURL/logo repository will be hooked up to the AmpliPi’s stream input dialogue?

5

What is the ip of your phone? If your phone is on a different subnet ( like 192.168.8 ) it won’t see the mdns broadcasts. For disparate networks you will need to use a mdns reflector with access to both subnets ( this is not something I have setup before ).

As for radio stations have you tried using a service like this: radio-browser.info if you click on one of the stations ( then click the name on the bottom) you can get the stream info.

6

Thanks! I answered my own question about finding FM-stations, in Github, but you might want to clarify my answer with your radio-browser suggestion. Then, maybe you should cut and paste that advice into the Getting Started doc?

The Eero app on my phone says that my phone’s IP is 192.168.7.226 … so same subnet. What else could make the AmpliPi invisible through mesh-Wifi…?

7

Is your phone connected to the guest wifi? Switching to the primary wifi would be an easy fix since some things are disable on the guest wifi.

Searching around I’ve see some mdns issues reported with different eero setups especially over wifi. I haven’t found any simple fixes, but admittedly have not spent enough time on it yet.

As for internet radio. We are very interested in improving radio station selection for both Pandora radio and internet radio since these both take longer to setup and are more error prone than they should now. The easier those processes are the faster users can get up and running. I’m hopeful we can add those in the next couple of months.

8

SOLVED: AmplPi required a power cycle, which likely updated the mDNS records to make mDNS broadcast properly over the mesh-Wifi. I had also changed the DNS server to Cloudflare, from the default being my ISP, but I doubt that made any difference. I was all about the reboot. My AmpliPi mobile app (on Wifi) can now find the AmpliPi and it now works perfectly. Is this a bug, or can you just add a power cycle button to the PC web-app? Walking into a server closet, to unplug a rack-mounted AmpliPi, is not an intuitive solution to mNDS updates.

9

This status request appears to show source’s will keep playing (consuming LANlbandwidth), when no zones are active.

{
“sources”: [
{
“id”: 0,
“name”: “Disk Player”,
“input”: “stream=1014”,
“info”: {
“name”: “FM98.1 CHFI - internet radio”,
“state”: “playing”,
“artist”: “98.1 CHFI Toronto ///”,
“track”: “98.1 CHFI Toronto”,
“station”: “98.1 CHFI Toronto”,
“img_url”: “https://ca.radio.net/images/broadcasts/ec/cd/115386/1/c300.png”
}
},
{
“id”: 1,
“name”: “AVR”,
“input”: “”,
“info”: {
“name”: “None”,
“state”: “stopped”,
“img_url”: “static/imgs/disconnected.png”
}
},
{
“id”: 2,
“name”: “Input 3”,
“input”: “stream=1001”,
“info”: {
“name”: “FM99.9 Virgin - internet radio”,
“state”: “playing”,
“artist”: “Ed Sheeran”,
“track”: “Shivers”,
“station”: “EN-Virgin Radio Toronto 99.9”,
“img_url”: “https://www.radio.net/images/broadcasts/b3/ca/16985/c300.png”
}
},
{
“id”: 3,
“name”: “Input 4”,
“input”: “stream=1013”,
“info”: {
“name”: “AM680 News - internet radio”,
“state”: “playing”,
“artist”: “CityNews 680 Toronto ///”,
“track”: “CityNews 680 Toronto”,
“station”: “CityNews 680 Toronto”,
“img_url”: “https://www.680news.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/sites/2/2020/01/16/cropped-680news_nav-1-270x270.png”
}
}
],
“zones”: [
{
“id”: 0,
“name”: “Back”,
“source_id”: 0,
“mute”: true,
“vol”: -33,
“disabled”: false
},
{
“id”: 1,
“name”: “Front”,
“source_id”: 0,
“mute”: true,
“vol”: -12,
“disabled”: false
},
{
“id”: 2,
“name”: “Ensuite”,
“source_id”: 0,
“mute”: true,
“vol”: -19,
“disabled”: false
},
{
“id”: 3,
“name”: “Study”,
“source_id”: 0,
“mute”: true,
“vol”: -21,
“disabled”: false
},
{
“id”: 4,
“name”: “Zone 5”,
“source_id”: 0,
“mute”: true,
“vol”: -79,
“disabled”: true
},
{
“id”: 5,
“name”: “Zone 6”,
“source_id”: 0,
“mute”: true,
“vol”: -79,
“disabled”: true
}
],
“groups”: [],
“streams”: [
{
“id”: 1000,
“name”: “Groove Salad”,
“type”: “internetradio”,
“url”: “http://ice3.somafm.com/groovesalad-128-mp3”,
“logo”: “https://somafm.com/img3/groovesalad-400.jpg”
},
{
“id”: 1001,
“name”: “FM99.9 Virgin”,
“type”: “internetradio”,
“url”: “http://208.80.52.143/CKFMFM_SC”,
“logo”: “https://www.radio.net/images/broadcasts/b3/ca/16985/c300.png”
},
{
“id”: 1002,
“name”: “FM92.5 KISS”,
“type”: “internetradio”,
“url”: “https://rogers-hls.leanstream.co/rogers/tor925.stream/playlist.m3u8”,
“logo”: “https://www.kiss925.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/59/2020/09/KiSS-925-logo-514x514-1.png”
},
{
“id”: 1004,
“name”: “Plex”,
“type”: “plexamp”,
“client_id”: “”,
“token”: “”
},
{
“id”: 1005,
“name”: “Spotify-test”,
“type”: “spotify”
},
{
“id”: 1006,
“name”: “dnla test”,
“type”: “dlna”
},
{
“id”: 1007,
“name”: “Aussies Bar Radio”,
“type”: “internetradio”,
“url”: “http://ts.auscfhost.com:8000/ABR_BACKUP”,
“logo”: “https://cdn-radiotime-logos.tunein.com/s247366d.png”
},
{
“id”: 1008,
“name”: “Caroline”,
“type”: “internetradio”,
“url”: “http://sc8.radiocaroline.net:8040/;”,
“logo”: “https://radiocaroline.co.uk/images/logo_with_8px_outline.svg”
},
{
“id”: 1009,
“name”: “BBC World Service”,
“type”: “internetradio”,
“url”: “http://stream.live.vc.bbcmedia.co.uk/bbc_world_service”,
“logo”: “http://cdn-profiles.tunein.com/s24948/images/logoq.jpg?t=1”
},
{
“id”: 1011,
“name”: “FM107.1 Q107 Toronto”,
“type”: “internetradio”,
“url”: “http://live.leanstream.co/CILQFM”,
“logo”: “https://q107.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2017/12/cropped-favicon_q107_square_transparent.png?w=180”
},
{
“id”: 1012,
“name”: “FM97.3 Boom”,
“type”: “internetradio”,
“url”: “http://newcap.leanstream.co/CHBMFM”,
“logo”: “http://media.socastsrm.com/wordpress/wp-content/blogs.dir/906/files/2017/05/boomlogo-White_Socast3.png”
},
{
“id”: 1013,
“name”: “AM680 News”,
“type”: “internetradio”,
“url”: “http://rogers-hls.leanstream.co:8000/rogers/tor680.stream/48k/playlist.m3u8”,
“logo”: “https://www.680news.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/sites/2/2020/01/16/cropped-680news_nav-1-270x270.png”
},
{
“id”: 1014,
“name”: “FM98.1 CHFI”,
“type”: “internetradio”,
“url”: “https://rogers-hls.leanstream.co/rogers/tor981.stream/playlist.m3u8”,
“logo”: “https://ca.radio.net/images/broadcasts/ec/cd/115386/1/c300.png”
},
{
“id”: 1015,
“name”: “FM94.7 CHKX Country”,
“type”: “internetradio”,
“url”: “http://provisioning.streamtheworld.com/pls/CHKXFMAAC.pls”,
“logo”: “http://www.kx947.fm/img/logo.jpg”
}
],
“presets”: [
{
“id”: 10000,
“name”: “Mute All”,
“state”: {
“zones”: [
{
“mute”: true,
“id”: 0
},
{
“mute”: true,
“id”: 1
},
{
“mute”: true,
“id”: 2
},
{
“mute”: true,
“id”: 3
},
{
“mute”: true,
“id”: 4
},
{
“mute”: true,
“id”: 5
}
]
}
}
],
“info”: {
“config_file”: “house.json”,
“version”: “0.1.7”,
“mock_ctrl”: false,
“mock_streams”: false
}
}

10

Yup. Feature: Auto stop streaming source after ~1 min of all connected zones/groups being muted · Issue #107 · micro-nova/AmpliPi · GitHub.