Add support for manual IP (discovery)
Answered
In my network the Multicast controller discovery does not work, and after talking to your support it does not seem it ever will. However, there is a simple fix, if it were possible to specify the player IP manually in the Iphone App (perhaps after the auto-discovery fails...) this would not be an issue. A static IP address is very easy to manually setup and would help anyone who can't rely on the multicast feature in their network setup.
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Official comment
HI Jim
Support is quite correct. Even if you had manual IP entry, since mDNS does not route by design, it will never work. Like most IoT devices, BluOS relies on multicast. BluOS also, for response time and for privacy reasons, BluOS does not have a central cloud. mDNS is the only way BluOS will ever work.
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Another user here… Normally setting a reserved IP in the Routers DHCP scope does the trick as the devices are always in the same “location” and helps with discovery. Unfortunately there is no option in the App.
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Thanks for your reply Seppi. I noticed that I probably need to clarify what I'm asking for. In my particular setup the devices are not on the same network. I have setup mDns proxy and open firewall so services like Spotify connect works fine. I can even connect to the controllers static IP from the web browser and access it from there. However the iOS app are unable to utilize multicast for bluos auto-discovery and hence does not work at all. If I instead could specify the controllers IP in the app, this would be fine, but for some reason, auto-discovery is the only way to connect the app with the controller. Others may have similar setups, or devices that does not fully support multicast, or are not configured correctly, that also would benefit from the option to manually specify the controller IP.
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Ah! Subnets, vlans or just somewhere else entirely 😂 Good luck!
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Thanks Tony for the reply. I want to state two things though, first mDNS works as I can discover, stream and control the N331 using spotify connect from my iPhone. Second, why does it allow connections using static IP and HTTP from my phone web browser (which are unicast) but not using the ios app?
My phone and N331 are on separate local networks.0 -
1) Spotify uses a cloud - routes are stored to your account. This is why you can start your Bluesound Player using the Spotify app even though you are not even home. This actually causes as many issues as it solves
2) The CP Menu you see in the browser uses HTTP. This is no different than visiting www.google.com or www.cbc.ca and you must have a DNS server or static routes added in your local router to make this happen.mDNS as a protocol however does not route, even with static routes entered.
Thanks for understanding
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Please lookup "mDNS proxy", it's very common for exactly this purpose. I doubt the iOS app is using multicast to broadcast traffic to the controller? If that is true idk what to respond. My assumption was that mDNS was used as designed, for discovery... the actual data sent between app and controller should be unicast.
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Look, I have the same issue with the desktop app, discovery does not work. However, the difference is that on the desktop app I can change the config files and manually set the controller IP, as per Bluesounds own instructions. And it works, so please spare me the technical debate. Try asking your lead developer or technical architect if this is such a bad idea.
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Jim, I think you are right. Technically, detecting BluOS devices is possible without mDNS as well. There may also be alternative controllers available.
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