Add Choice to Bypass App's Auto Discovery of Player by Entering Address Manually
Answered
Hello, as an integrator in the premium sector, we're encountering more environments where BlueSound's auto-discovery of the player does not work. Most of the premium residential environments these days are using enterprise wireless platforms which often don't work well with BlueSound's mDNS auto discovery method. Unlike standard residential environments, auto discovery also does not solve a problem in high-end sectors as we are not having users use their smartphones or other multi-use devices to connect to their BluOS devices; they use dedicated provisionally MDM provisioned tablets that never leave the home. From the IT perspective, it would be helpful if we had a choice to enter the IP of the players manually in the app.
Having a choice to bypass auto discovery and enter the address manually would avoid the overhead on the IT side of mDNS provisioning which can be quite burdensome as it's one more area to QA with every WLC firmware change. In recent reviews, we learned it was adding hours to some projects to accommodate BlueSound autodiscovery. In some very recent instances, we found it was not possible to integrate BlueSound. Simply being able to specify the address of the player would simplify the integration, provide universal compatibility with top end enterprise network platforms, and allow for higher priority items such as access point or WLC upgrades, etc. to occur without concern it would effect discoverability of the BlueSound player.
I'm taking the time to write this because, in other respects, the BlueSound player offers a nice Hi-Fi pairing to bring artistic truthfulness to content received from streaming providers. Giving the choice to administratively bypass auto discover in the app would help streamline the installation and improve ongoing support / user experience in the premium niche where the benefit of auto-discover wouldn't be realized since the control tablets never leave the premises and the end users are never configuring the app themselves.
Thank you for the consideration.
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Official comment
Hi Matthew
Thanks for the feedback.
The problem you are encountering is a result of network traffic being blocked or not properly configured. The solution you are asking for is already readily available by using existing equipement and correcting your network such as DHCP reservations etc.
Reach out to our support team at support@bluesound.com and they will be happy to assist.
You can also view our network troubleshooting tips already available on this site at www.bluesound.com/network101 to help. -
Hi Tony,
Thank you for your timely reply and I appreciate your time. Just to make sure I'm on the right page, by your statement, "The solution you are asking for is already readily available", do you mean the app does currently have the option to specify the player manually without using autodiscover? If yes, would you be able to provide the steps? Else, would it be an option to add that choice?
To further describe the obstacle with autodiscover: The issue is, with enterprise platforms, even if the networking team creates a procedure that works with Bluesound's autodiscover, they may have to modify that procedure with the next firmware change. This means, the requirement to use autodiscover is actually making the implementation more complex rather than making it simpler. Take a recent implementation as an example: a site was being upgraded to Wave2, but also needed mesh. This meant, of course, updating to the latest WLC firmware which broke discoverability of Bluesound devices (even though printers, etc. were still discoverable) so, even though there were no issues with other devices, Bluesound was no longer discoverable by the app. It could be made to work, but added more than 16 hours ($259 * 16 = $4,144 to the end user) to the project. If it was a choice to specify the player manually instead only being able to use an autodiscovery system, that would help IT as it removes a possible point of failure by avoiding that whole layer. In these environments, being able to address the player manually in the app makes the installation much simpler.
There are other benefits, as well, to not requiring the use of autodiscover and, instead, providing the choice to manually address the player: it provides an easy way to keep the Bluesound players on dedicated media VLANs. Right now we can't do this because the autodiscover is not routable. This is a shame because you typically set prioritization, packet shaping, etc. on these VLANS to ensure optimization for Hi-Fi devices over all other VLANs. Since Bluesound devices require non-routable autodiscovery, they can't yet benefit from this. This would be solved by being able to manually specify the player in the app. This is a just a plus though in case it helps to know of another advantage to providing the option to bypass the app's autodiscover and allow the integrator to specify the player(s) manually.
Thanks again.
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Hi Matthew
The vast majority of IoT Appliances, such as BluOS Players, for the most part, rely on zero-configuration which by definition is not routable.
The solutions you are asking for are to compensate for poorly designed networks or networks designed in Enterprise Environments that do not use consumer-grade products.
The readily available solutions I suggested were by programming your routing environment to properly accommodate those such as DHCP reservations or ensuring proper zero-conf packet transfer is not being blocked by firewalls.
Our Support Crew will be happy to make recommendations on best practices to help you with your problems.
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Thank you Tony for your reply.
If it helps clarify at all, what I'm asking for relates to a sector of the premium residential market that actually incorporates Enterprise systems. You may already be familiar with this, however, in case you are not, there is a market of ultra-premium residential where you'll find full enterprise IT integrated into the home. In these residences, it's not unusual, for example, to incorporate $60,000 Cisco networking systems and many other high end characteristics. Many times the IT budget alone is close to $500,000 and the environment is held to Enterprise security and privacy best practices. The limitations of zero-configuration can pose obstacles in these Enterprise Environments that might not be realized in standard QA against consumer grade products. From the IT perspective, it would be easier for us if we could choose zero-config when integrating BluOS players with consumer-grade environments and, when integrating with Enterprise Environments (in the premium residential sector), we could choose to manually specify the BluOS players instead of having to rely on the app discovering the player. This would allow the BluOS players to easily be integrated in both consumer and Enterprise environments.
Also, as you mentioned, zero-config is not routable which means we're forced to place the BlueOS players on less optimized VLANS. Adding the choice to use manual instead of zero-config would allow us to place your players on VLANS with optimized QoS giving the listener an even better experience.
One other problem this solves is the limitation of zero-config as it relates to FlexConnect networks. Most senior management of larger enterprises these days receive FlexConnect networks at their residences from their corporate IT departments. I have not yet figured out how Sonos has gotten their auto-discover system to work with FlexConnect (as it really shouldn't work - and other auto-discover systems don't seem to), but it would be nice if we could offer these users the choice to step up to BluOS. Giving the choice to manually enter the BluOS player in the control software would solve the problem of the limitations of zero-config and allow the BluOS players to integrated effortlessly in even FlexConnect scenarios.
Obviously high end offerings such those from Aurender are QA'd to these environments and work fine, however, many times the owner wants to have the same system as their kids or friends and the BluOS players are a bit more universally attainable so having one player that is suitable for consumer and high end would be quite nice from my commission standpoint and from the IT perspective.
From a sales standpoint, I would like to sell more of these, but I do understand if our target is too niche. Thank you for the consideration.
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