I bought a Wiim Pro Plus in Amazon's Prime deals a couple of weeks ago for £175. I set it up and within the app it told me Airplay 2 did not work and to click on a link, type in my details and they'd send me a replacement. So I did that and rather than just getting a replacement, I ended up in a few days of e-mails with customer service asking me to factory reset it etc before they agreed to send a replacement. If your own device tells someone it does not work and to click one link for a replacement, that's really what you expect to happen. Ultimately they asked me for all the details to send it out, which I pointed out were in my very first message to them. They must have found it because the replacement arrived. They've not sent me any request to send back the original yet so I currently have two, and both work other than Airplay 2 on the first one - and that's not particularly necessary since you can use Airplay on the fully functional one and it will sync both. So it seems I have two devices, bit of a bargain.
My last post on this thread was asking about multi-room and now I've had a chance to try it myself. It seems to work; the only annoyance is that it doesn't really work with external inputs because if you play a record (a vinyl
) in the living room and sync it to the study, there's a lag. That's inevitable when you are playing something direct, while taking the pre-out into the Wiim in one room and sending it to the other room; there's no time correction on the direct playback. This should have been obvious to me but hey. It is something which could potentially be corrected by using a Wiim Amp to replace my living room amp (I'm thinking of buying a Wiim Amp Pro when they launch in August) or by using a pre-amp into the Wiim Pro Plus and then outputting that to my regular amp. I don't think the latter is very elegant. And multi-room with records or CDs still requires you to go to the other room to change the track or put a different album on. So I might just ignore it and not try to do something it's not intended to do really
Further discoveries:
Apple Music (which my wife has a sub for) and Youtube Music (which I have a sub for) work by Airplay or casting rather than natively. Amazon Music is native, so my wife was somewhat unimpressed that she has a choice of about 15 different versions of Boris Johnson Is A Fucking Cunt by The Kunts to listen to
My Squeezebox server software found the Wiim and allowed me to select it as a player without any trouble. I can't point the Wiim at it as a network server though; I think you need a more up to date version of the server software and it might. But I already have an app I have used for at least a decade (iPeng) which controls the Squeezebox server. I have connected up a Squeezebox Radio and it syncs fine with Wiim for multi-room but obviously only for the Squeezebox server, and I'm pensioning off the Logitech kit now since it's getting on a bit and the rubber buttons are rather sticky.
I think I will get a couple of Wiim Minis which are only receivers; the plan is to connect these to soundbars under the tellies so this can be part of a multi-room thing. Not sure how much we'd use them but they are relatively cheap - £90 but nearer £75 when Amazon have a deal on.
I have ordered an Apple Homepod 2 for the kitchen though. It should be the case that Wiim can stream to that for multi-room but I understand they have disabled Airplay 2 casting (eh? Is that what caused me to get a replacement device because it wasn't working? OK...) but there is a new functionality coming in the next firmware update which hopefully reinstates that. We will see. Ultimately it seems to try to do everything so there will probably be a way, and if not I can still use the Homepod to train my wife to play music from her phone.
And the overriding impression with my Wiims is that they seem to achieve things I wasn't expecting: the Squeezebox server finding it straight away, syncing Wiims while using Airplay from my phone; and I have found multiple ways to do the same thing: Airplay or casting to play from my phone, even adjusting the volume. And the latter is what makes me uncertain. I'll be fine with it but I think my wife probably won't use it because it's too complicated. Just putting a record or CD on is still a nice easy way to listen to music. We will see.
Oh, and since the Wiim devices are mostly add-ons I do get free rein to use my existing kit, or buy things like Homepods or soundbars which should all integrate. Again, we will see
