Announce: LMS Connect - streaming Tidal/Qobuz to LMS via native Android apps

[RCST]

> Finally found a simulator to test the shortcut import process and fully
> understood what you meant! Sorry for the confusion and this shortcut
> function is still new to me. Now it should be fixed, please download it
> again via this new link:
> https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/344...e499d0deea3694

Great work! I tried to come up with something similar a while back. But
I struggled with Shortcuts. I didn't find an easy way to have re-usable
"code" snippets (aka. "functions" or "procedures"). So I ended up with a
bunch of workflows calling each others - which makes it basically
impossible to distribute them... Would you know whether it's even
possible to have re-usable components in a single file? Eg. I wanted to
have a method to do calls to LMS, which would accept the player ID and
the commands to execute, parsing results etc.

[RCST]

Announce: LMS Connect - streaming Tidal/Qobuz/Deezer to LMS via native Android apps

Have been using LMS(Logitech Media Server) + Tidal/Qobuz plugins to stream Tidal/Qobuz, however, still prefer to use native Tidal/Qobuz apps to explore musics. Inspired by the way how the android Kodi control apps streaming Youtube video to Kodi, developed this little android app which can stream Tidal/Qobuz/Deezer to LMS via the native Tidal/Qobuz/Deezer Android apps.

Of course, this is not an official “Tidal Connect” or “Qobuz Connect”, but a diy workaround. In short , here is how it works: In the android Tidal/Qobuz/Deezer app, find any track, album or playlist, share it to this “LMS_Connect” app, then the music will be streamed to LMS.

Prerequisite:
LMS with Tidal or Qobuz or Deezer plugin(s) installed.
An Android device (phone or tablet) with Native Tidal or Qobuz or Deezer app(s) installed.
The Android device and LMS server are in the same network.

Installation and set up instruction:
Note: this app doesn’t require any permission and doesn’t need your Tidal or Qobuz or Deezer account info as they are all set up in LMS.
1. In your Android device, use a web browser to download and install the “LMS_Connect” app:
link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YTB...ew?usp=sharing

(As other apps from "unknown source, some warnings will be shown during the installation)

2. Run the “LMS_Connect” app to set up your LUMS connection. Just fill in the LMS server ip address (ip address only, not host name) and leave other 2 values as is unless you know what to set. Then press “Retrieve player data from server” button, if everything goes right, all the LMS players should be listed.

3. Tap the player you want to stream the music to (still need to tap once even just have one player), then the header of the list view above should state the which player is chosen.

4. Then the app can be closed.

5. Open the Tidal or Qobuz or Deezer app, find a track, an album or a playlist, then "share" to either "Play on LMS" "Next on LMS" or "Queue on LMS".

Note: For LMS 8.2 and under, this app can only "share" and play "Track", "PlayList" and "Album", but not other Tidal objects (such as Radio, mix or Daily Discovery), a workaround is to (in the Tidal app) add any "My Daily Discovery", "Radio" or "Mix" into a new PlayList, then play the PlayList.

For LMS 8.3, from v1.8, this app supports Tidal Radio, mix and Daily Discovery.

[12 Mar 2022 - update v1.8]
- Support Tidal Mixes (Daily Discovery, Radio etc..), but latest LMS8.3 is required.
link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YTB...ew?usp=sharing

[28 Aug 2022 - update v2.0Beta]
- Completely rebuilt using latest Xamarin & vs 2022, but who cares!
- Add new "Share icon/option" - Play Next. So this version will install 3 shared icons/options, "Play on LMS" (Play Now), "Next on LMS" (Play Next) or "Queue on LMS" (Add to Queue)
- Add an option to choose players (and actions) during sharing. The "Select player during sharing" switch can be set in the main app screen and sharing screen.
-If you have installed earlier versions, unfortunately you need to manually uninstall the existing app then install the new one as I am using an new laptop and the original key file was lost, sorry for the inconvenience
link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e4S...ew?usp=sharing

[cpd73]

Auto-discover server

Instead of having the user fill in the LMS connection details, you could automatically discover LMS servers - and then automatically retrieve the list of players. My WebView wrapper for Material skin does this auto-discover, and its quite simple see: https://github.com/CDrummond/lms-mat...Discovery.java

[RCST]

Thanks for the tips! Auto server discovery is the next to do but it's my first mobile app, just try to make it work first.

By the way, your Material skin is great, love it!

[jeroen2]

Thanks for the tips! Auto server discovery is the next to do but it's my first mobile app, just try to make it work first.

Thanks for developing and sharing this. Works great on my /e/os phone as well.

I also agree that auto discovery would be a nice feature to have.

[mherger]

Announce: LMS Connect - streamingTidal/Qobuz to LMS via native Android apps

> Have been using LMS(Logitech Media Server) + Tidal/Qobuz plugins to
> stream Tidal/Qobuz, however, still prefer to use native Tidal/Qobuz apps
> to explore musics Inspired by the way how the android Kodi control apps
> streaming Youtube video to Kodi, developed this little android app which
> can stream Tidal/Qobuz to LMS via the native Tidal/Qobuz Android apps.

Nice! Can you share some information about how this is implemented
"under the hood"? I haven't found much useful information about what
their implementation of a Connect mode is.

[RCST]

Nice! Can you share some information about how this is implemented
"under the hood"? I haven't found much useful information about what
their implementation of a Connect mode is.

Sure, already plan to upload the code to Github and share, just need to clean the code a bit, currently looking pretty embarrass.

The concept is very simple:
- Register the Android app as "sharing targets" so that it will appear in the "share to" list,
- Once the native Tidal/Qobuz app shares the album/playlis/track url (like this: https://tidal.com/track/181884677) to the app, the app gets the type(album, playlist or tack) and the id ("181884677" in the above example) based on the url,
- The app reformats the type and id to the LMS Tidal/Qobuz accepted song url format and send it to the LMS jsonrpc either via "Playlist add" or Playlist play" commands. (e.g the Tidal accepted url format is: "wimp://181884677.flac", and the whole jsonrpc body looks like this: "{"id":1,"method":"slim.request","params":["b8:27:eb:8f:24:4b",["playlist","play","wimp://181884677.flac"]]}"

So actually all the hard works are done in the Tidal & Qobuz LMS plugins!

[mherger]

Announce: LMS Connect - streamingTidal/Qobuz to LMS via native Android apps

> The concept is very simple:
> - Register the Android app as "sharing targets" so that it will appear
> in the "share to" list,

Ah, ok. So it's really implemented on the Android app level, not in the
protocol those services use to discover speakers that might implement
their Connect feature? Still a cool idea!

[RCST]

> The concept is very simple:
> - Register the Android app as "sharing targets" so that it will appear
> in the "share to" list,

Ah, ok. So it's really implemented on the Android app level, not in the
protocol those services use to discover speakers that might implement
their Connect feature? Still a cool idea!

Sorry, no, I don't anything about the official "Connect" protocols. I guess whoever knows must have signed a NDA, and I have been waiting for Tidal to implement the Tidal Connect in their desktop apps, but it seem this is not their priority at all.

[Auke]

Works great, Thanks

[Auke]

Stil using this app. It seems that the latest bugfix is not enough. It stil resets the player to the first one.

[RCST]

Stil using this app. It seems that the latest bugfix is not enough. It stil resets the player to the first one.

Just uploaded v1.5, hopefully can fix you issue. (I have been using it for a few months, don't have this issue any more).

The link is in the original post, please download and install again.

[galgofa]

for Youtube

Thanks for your work and plugin which found suitable for most of the users, but may i ask you if possible to adapt it somehow to handle sharing links from youtube video's ?

[RCST]

Thanks for your work and plugin which found suitable for most of the users, but may i ask you if possible to adapt it somehow to handle sharing links from youtube video's ?

The latest version is able to handle links from youtube video and http media links.

[Auke]

Just tried 1.5. It seems to works flawless. Thanks for the super fast update!