Now the Squeezebox is dead, what would your next system be? And why?

[SBGK]

My only problem with Sonos is that they don't have Triode on their development team!

His BBC iPlayer and Spotify plug-ins are the two most used plug-ins on my Squeezeboxes. In fact I reckon about 50% of my family's total listening time is accounted for with just those two facilities.
Sonos do not have an iPlayer app at all and their Spotify app is not a patch on Triode's plug-in.
If my Squeezeboxes fail, or Triode's plug-ins stop working, then I will be bereft...
I am sorely tempted to pick up some back-up Squeezeboxes just in case, but if the plug-ins stop working before the Squeezeboxes do then that would be a waste of money.

keep an eye on the squeezelite thread, seems to be evolving rapidly.

[TheLastMan]

keep an eye on the squeezelite thread, seems to be evolving rapidly.

Thanks for the heads up. Had not spotted that thread before. The guy is obviously a genius!

I was aware that I could install a software player on a mini-PC, and that one comes bundled with Vortexbox anyway. I am not looking for the eptiome of small and cheap. I am quite happy to install Vortexbox on something like a Zotac atom based mini-PC if necessary, provided it will sync securely with other players.

I suppose I am more worried about Triode deciding to retire from supporting his plugins. However the Squeezelite project gives me hope that he has not given up yet.

What does this guy do for a living? Where does he find the time to do this stuff? He should start asking for donations. I think he might be surprised at how many use his plugins and are prepared to show their gratitude financially in order to secure continued plug-in support, particularly those of us in the UK.

[erland]

I was aware that I could install a software player on a mini-PC, and that one comes bundled with Vortexbox anyway. I am not looking for the eptiome of small and cheap. I am quite happy to install Vortexbox on something like a Zotac atom based mini-PC if necessary, provided it will sync securely with other players.

I've used Squeezelite on a Zotac Zbox AD04 with its analogue output, worked great as far as I could see.
It was while squeezelite was still a beta version and I tried but didn't succeed to get it to work with the HDMI output, but was more of a OS problem than a squeezelite problem since I didn't even get the HDMI audio to work with other software. Will have to try again with the latest version when I get the time.

I suppose I am more worried about Triode deciding to retire from supporting his plugins. However the Squeezelite project gives me hope that he has not given up yet.

As all third party developers I'm sure he loves to get positive feedback and ideas for potential improvements.
If you want to ensure he stays, keep giving him positive feedback, help with beta testing, troubleshooting your own and other users setup and give him ideas for potential improvements.

A few years back some people were worried about using third party plugins because they were afraid they wouldn't be supported in the future, instead they wanted Logitech to add the functionality to the core because then the long term maintenance would be secured, they thought...

What does this guy do for a living? Where does he find the time to do this stuff?

It's all about priorities, reality shows on TV and sleeping 12 hours per day is generally overrated ;-)

He should start asking for donations.
I think he might be surprised at how many use his plugins and are prepared to show their gratitude financially in order to secure continued plug-in support, particularly those of us in the UK.

Everything isn't about money, some people like to do development just because it's creative and fun and it's also nice to make people happy and get the positive feedback.

Donations and commercial plugins introduce an extra level of administration and effort which is needed to keep tax authorities happy, it also have a tendency to make your hobby feel like work and obligations which isn't always positive. So if you don't need the extra money or doesn't want the extra administration, donations and commercial solutions might not be the best solution to motivate yourself.

I haven't regretted my decision to make some of my plugins commercial, but I can definitely understand why some developers doesn't want to take that route because even if it's positive from a financial perspective it also introduce some new non technical challenges and negative aspects as described above. Donations generally doesn't work on longer terms, at least it didn't for me, too few users is prepared to voluntarily donate money to make it worth the effort and if you get a lot of donations the tax authorities is going to get interested and then you get the extra administration without the high revenue.

[TheLastMan]

Thanks for the detailed feedback Erland, interesting to see what motivates you guys. I will keep an eye on Squeezlite. Most of the issues appear to be around making it work on low power devices. If it works easily with something like a Zotac Zbox then I will probably go that route in the future if I need a replacement for my Receivers. I am quite happy with a decent "analogue out".

For those of us with full time jobs, wives also in full time work and kids (in my case three under 12) "time poor" is an appropriate description.
I am hardly "cash rich" either, but am more able to provide a bit of cash than I am time for beta testing, etc. Very happy to give positive feedback though, and have done a few times as far as Triode is concerned.

I note your comment about donations being as much of a burden as a benefit, and I can understand that. Rest assured, there are lots of us out here who appreciate the Squeezebox plug-in developers. You guys are in serious danger of creating a fully open source music streaming system. I can even see a small cottage industry developing in providing low volume, high quality, Squeezebox players and servers with pre-installed Linux OS and software that can be sold to those of us without the time, inclination or expertise to "build our own". If Agillis can do it with Vortexbox then there is room for others, I am sure.

The big challenge will be keeping LMS working once Logitech turns off the MySB servers. Any chance of that? Or would it be "curtains" for the Squeezebox?

It's all about priorities, reality shows on TV and sleeping 12 hours per day is generally overrated ;-)

Wow! Chance wouild be a fine thing. Very fine!

Live long and prosper... (please!)

[erland]

The big challenge will be keeping LMS working once Logitech turns off the MySB servers. Any chance of that? Or would it be "curtains" for the Squeezebox?

I'm not that worried, we are probably talking about at least 2 years in the future, probably longer, I'm fairly sure the market will find a solution suitable for our needs by then.
It might not be Squeezebox hardware but as long as it offers similar features most of us will be happy to switch to it.

For local music LMS will continue to work a long time after MySB servers has been shutdown.

[fewleh]

I'm not that worried, we are probably talking about at least 2 years in the future, probably longer, I'm fairly sure the market will find a solution suitable for our needs by then.
It might not be Squeezebox hardware but as long as it offers similar features most of us will be happy to switch to it.

For local music LMS will continue to work a long time after MySB servers has been shutdown.

Sorry, I'm totally new to the squeezebox arena and this thread has made me very confused. I just bought a slim devices squeezebox, and was thinking of getting a few more.. but what is this about the servers dying? What does it mean to an end user? Will I no longer be able to do anything with it? Or will streaming from a local media server be OK, but internet radio will be inaccessible? Or is there a 3rd party plugin I can install that will let me continue streaming radio etc? Hope someone can clarify for newbies/idiots like myself, thanks

[Julf]

Sorry, I'm totally new to the squeezebox arena and this thread has made me very confused. I just bought a slim devices squeezebox, and was thinking of getting a few more.. but what is this about the servers dying? What does it mean to an end user? Will I no longer be able to do anything with it? Or will streaming from a local media server be OK, but internet radio will be inaccessible? Or is there a 3rd party plugin I can install that will let me continue streaming radio etc? Hope someone can clarify for newbies/idiots like myself, thanks

You'll be Ok with local music, and there are 3rd party plugins for many services, but not all.

[garym]

Internet radio where you can directly enter URL (which is true for 99% of my use case) will work after mysb.com goes away.

[PasTim]

Take a look at squeeze2upnp. It's still in beta form, but I've been using it for some time. If you rely on LMS, don't need multi-system synchronisation, and have UPnP amplifiers, it's well worth trying.

See https://github.com/philippe44/LMS-to-uPnP

[jarome]

Short term:

Related to this, would you be willing to pay an annual or one time fee if you would be sure it would make it possible for you to continue using your Squeezebox hardware with current or similar features ?
I'm just asking because I think it's unlikely that Logitech or anybody else will do it for free on longer terms, it's just too much work to keep it working with the latest streaming services and you need to add support for new streaming services when they arrive for the platform to be attractive as one or more new streaming services tends to appear on the market every year. Logitech won't do this even if we pay for it, but there might be third parties that are interested in doing it.

I would be willing..