Create multiple groups with same speakers
Answered
I would like to create multiple groups with the same speakers.
1: 2 pulse flex speakers playing stereo
2: Soundbar 2i en 2 pulse flex as a home cinema group
3: All speakers playing stereo
Could you please add this feature?
Grouping/ungrouping is no option.
Thank you!
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Official comment
Hi Andre
Thanks for the feedback, I have forwarded it along to our Product Development Team for future Consideration...
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I totally agree about this feature! As it is now, I don't necessarily want to play on all players at the same time, but I'd like the possibility if I'm moving between rooms. But as it is now, I have to go and group and ungroup all the time if I want to toggle between single-room and multi-room. That's not very convenient.
I guess it's a pretty simple feature if the "add new player" view always contains the already existing players, so that they can be added to the main list an grouped into new groups. And of course some logic to prevent duplicates when adding/ungrouping the players.
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Hi Carl-David
Adding and removing rooms is as simple as pressing the Plus or Minus sign in the Player Selection Drawer next to Players you want to add to the currently highlighted group.
For Moving, press the follow me arrow on the currently selected player and then select your destination room.
Add New Player is for setting up a Player for the first time. https://support1.bluesound.com/hc/en-us/articles/203055748
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@Tony: You can only add rooms if you have speakers that are not assigned to a room yet. Which means one speaker can only belong to one group at a time, which sucks.
My scenario is as following: I've got three speakers. Two on my entry floor, one on the upper floor. I'd like to be able to stream to each one of them individually (of course), to all of them, and to only the entry floor (containing two of the three). How do you mean I can achieve this with the iOS app?
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Hi Carl
Starting form a clean screen by pressing X next to any primary players to break any current groups in the Player Selection Drawer
Stream Individual
- Select Desired Player
- Play Content
Scenario 1 - All Players
- Select any Player in the Player Selection Drawer
- Play Content
- Press Group All in the footer of Player Selection Drawer
Scenario 2 - Just Main Floor
- Select Main Floor 1
- Play Content
- Press plus sign next to Main Floor Player 2
Scenario 3 - (Bonus - move from Main Floor to Upper Floor)
- Select Main Player (Group)
- Press arrow in the upper right of Selected Player
- Select Upper Floor from pop up menu
Scenario 4 - Break a group
- Press the X next to the Primary Player of the group
- All players except the Primary Player will stop playing as the group is dissolved
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@Tony: I was under the impression that the concept of "rooms" in the app where static and not so dynamic as you describe using this feature. I thought you'd set up rooms, and then rarely touch the setup. Thing is, I'm using Spotify Connect to stream songs, and when I have created rooms, they, just like individual players, appear in Spotify and can be selected as output. However, the way you describe how these scenarios could be achieved, there's no way I could solve that only using Spotify since I won't be able to have "Main Floor" and "All" available there, since a speaker cannot belong to two rooms at the same time. You'd have to open up the Bluesound app, ungroup and group, then switch to Spotify and play the sond you wanted to hear. Can you see the use of the feature me and Andre are trying to push?
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In Spotify's case, we can't; Unfortunately this is a limitation of the Spotify API (and only Spotify)...
You do have to App switch but it works; https://support1.bluesound.com/hc/en-us/articles/204063926
When implemented, we were the first Spotify Connect system that had groups. Since then the landscape has changed and Spotify has notified us that they are looking to add this functionality in the future...
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@Tony: It's not a limitation in the Spotify API. When I create a group in BlueOS, it instantly appears in the list of "outputs" in Spotify. So this feature request is simply about making it possible for a speaker to be part of multiple groups.
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Hi Carl-David
So this feature request is simply about making it possible for a speaker to be part of multiple groups.
As always we do forward all feedback to our product development team for consideration but I do know as it stands right now, we can't without a major redesign of how our grouping methodology works so won't be soon.
For Spotify, please use the work around we have published, and let Spotify know as well too that you want the ability to Group in their App as well in hopes they will update their API which is really the solution you are looking for.
Thanks for #LivingHiFi0 -
I mean indeed the way groups are made. And I don’t understand that’s so difficult to adjust the groups. It’s already possible to create one group with speakers, just make it possible to create multiple groups with the same speakers and then the groups are visible in Spotify.
Grouping/ungrouping in BluOS is not a workable option for me.
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I want to support this feature request : the fact that one speaker can only be part of a single group removes completely the usefulness of the Fixed Groups. I would like a group with my whole house showing in addition to each individual room, and not having to redo the grouping each time I need it !
Plus dynamic grouping has bugs, which I'll report separately
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Hi Thierry
If you are having issues, please select Help, Send Support Request in the App.
A note about Fixed Groups - they are just that - fixed. We originally were going to name them Perma-Groups but that didn't translate well. A fixed Group is not supposed to be taken apart...ever. It is Fixed...(such as a Home Theatre or SteroePair). This is why it appears as a single Player in the App once it is a Fixed Group. They aren't designed to be 'favorites'.
If you want to move a Player into and out of a group, even if it is occasionally, then use standard dynamic grouping. Note Bluesound Players have, for lack of better term, inertial grouping (following Newton's laws of motion). A Bluesound Player will stay group or ungrouped until you break the group...
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Thanks for the feedback.
Nothing wrong with the fact that these groups are permanent. It should just not prevent me from having a speaker be part of different groups.
Or to put it another way, what you are calling groups is not a real multi-room feature: is is an association of speakers so that they always work together. So it is fine if you want to setup a left and right speaker together, or a home theater system, but I don't know of any multi-room user who would always want to have the rooms on or off together.
So whatever you call them, fixed groups, or favorites, doesn't matter. What is missing from the app is a way to create groups of speakers or room that you can activate quickly without having to recreate the group at each time.
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I agree with and support the inclusion this feature request. Soundbar by the TV, Flex-es on the kitchen, bedroom, hall.
Ideally, I should be able to use the following groups:
- All speakers
- Movie time
+++
in addition to having each separate speaker available as individual playback devices.I do understand it would take a bit of time to make this happen, so in the mean time I will be using the work around.
PS: Thank you Bluesound for making a great product!
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I also want to support this feature request. The current dynamic grouping feature doesn't fit the fact that speakers stay where they are and are not moved permanently around my house (which would raise the need for dynamic grouping).
Imagine an L shaped room with three speakers: A and B located at the far ends of the L and speaker C located in the corner of the L. Depending in which part of the room I am I want speakers A and C playing or speakers B and C playing. This does not change. There is no need to be totally dynamic. What I need is a quick way to select "A and C" or "B and C".
With current dynamic grouping I always have to select A as my current player and dynamically add C. If I go around the corner I have to select B and dynamically add C. This is way too many clicks. It would be better if I could create two groups: "A and C" and "B and C" and switch between these two with one click.
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I have to add my +1 to this post. Bluesound certainly makes great products, but the lack of this feature makes me consider selling my speakers - and also makes me not want to buy more speakers.
Consider this @bluesound:
I have several rooms, and depending on the situation (party, family dinner, watching tv, etc), i want to activate a different "scene" (or group if you want) of speakers. I want to easily be able to select for example "All rooms", "Livingroom" or "Bathroom and livingroom", inside Spotify. If i am to achieve this today, i have to go into the blueos app, and manualy group/ungroup stuff, which is not the 1-click solution people want. I don't want to spend time on grouping/ungrouping stuff every time, i want my own custom groups - where speakers can belong to different groups at the same time. The more speakers you have with todays solution, the more cumbersome it will be to do this. So it scales, negatively.
If this won't be fixed anytime soon, i will probably switch to another multiroom solution.
And this is not a spotify limitation. This is a grouping limitation in Bluesound that should be prioritized to be fixed asap.
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And another +1 here for me. Not using Spotify, but moving my players in differents configurations that i would like to keep in memory.
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+1 here. Need to be able to create several groups with different settings.
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+1 from me as well
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Created an account just to say: +1.
Also, when I have two speakers for two different rooms - why is it not possible to have them as a group and as standalone speakers?0 -
Hi Alexander
It is completely possible. By default, this is how they work; https://support.bluos.net/hc/en-us/articles/360000206107
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Sadly this is not the case.
When you group the two players, then they're in one group and it is therefore not possible to go from both - to just one individual speaker without ungrouping them.
Another example might be grouping the two speakers, but still have them as standalone speakers. So when choosing in Spotify, it would say eg: "Speaker 1", "Speaker 2" or "Both" - again, this is not possible (as far as I have understood).0 -
When you group the two players, then they're in one group and it is therefore not possible to go from both - to just one individual speaker without ungrouping them.
Correct - going to 1 individual speaker, is by definition un-grouping them.
So when choosing in Spotify, it would say eg: "Speaker 1", "Speaker 2" or "Both" - again, this is not possible
This is in fact a limitation of Spotify's as their Spotify Connect End-point solution has no ability in the API they provide to handle player grouping in their App.
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Okay, so I've tried using my PhD in arts and made an illustration in Paint.
This is what I'm seeing in the app. Are you telling me, that the second frame is possible?
1. Two independent speakers.
2. Two independent speakers + a group consisting of both (ideal)
3. The group with both, but not possibility of switching to a singular without ungrouping (What I get)1 -
I'm saying you have a hybrid of the two that looks like this.
What you are suggesting is actually Spotify's App. This is how Spotify Connect works and player grouping cannot be done in their App without switching to the BluOS App due ti a limitation of Spotify's API; https://support.bluos.net/hc/en-us/articles/360000245288
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Tony W.
To be frank, this is utter male bovine feces. The question is not about Spotify, the question is about being able to group one or more speakers in the BluOS App, while keeping them as solo speakers, as well as having multiple speaker groups containing different speakers already included in other groups.
Pardon my language. Spotify isn't even part of this problem, because it's impossible to do the proper grouping in the BluOS app.
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Tony, take a look at how Google Home speakers do multi grouping. You can for instance have groups of "kitchen" and "everywhere" at the same time.
So the speaker has two or more groups, and you can choose which group to cast to.
If google can have multi groups towards spotify, then it should be possible, right?
However, switching audio source in the Blueos app could be fine, because its not only a spotify issue. A common issue for me is listening to music in every room, and then watching netflix in a specific room. Now i have to group and ungroup, which is very tedious. I really, really do not want to do these groupings more than once. Not every time.
So a solution could perhaps be to define your groups in blueos, with support for multi speaker setup, and then just select in the blueos app which group youd like to have active /playing to.
I suggest you discuss this with UX and tech architects, because finding a solution to this is essential for having a good multi room audio system.
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It was three months ago I reported this issue. Can’t believe it hasn’t been prioritized.
Look, if Spotify has the concept of grouping devices (by the ”way” they have been grouped in BlueOS), then why not, conceptually in their API, treat every speaker as a ”group”, and then also let the combinations of speakers created as groups in BlueOS co-exist. Wouldn’t that solve the problem?
Do you have a link to the location in the Spotify Connect API documentation where what you refer to as a ”limitation” can be seen?
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I want to +1 that this is not a problem with Spotify but a problem with the usability of the BluOS app. Switching from one set of speakers to another one is unnecessary complicated in the BluOS app because I always have to define the group of speakers I currently want to listen on if I want one speaker to be part of more than one set. The number of clicks to change from "living room and kitchen" to "kitchen and dining area" is way to high. It should be one click. And this could be achieved by creating multiple groups with the same speakers in them.
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Fully agree, Nothing to do with Spotify : I usually use Qobuz, from within the BluOS App and I have the same issue.
I understand this seems complex to achieve for BluOS developers (quoting Tony W. a few weeks ago : "As always we do forward all feedback to our product development team for consideration but I do know as it stands right now, we can't without a major redesign of how our grouping methodology works so won't be soon."), but without this feature, BlueSound does not provide a true multi-room systems, so I think it should be highly prioritized for a future release.
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