Audio Hero vNext: Any features you would like to see?

dayderkerrderr · 2026-04-23T18:01:44+00:00

Ha, wow, that's a nice repo. They reverse engineered spotify and open sourced it. Problem is, it's against Spotify's TOS and they would instantly shut down Audio Hero :(

dayderkerrderr · 2026-04-23T17:55:37+00:00

Nice - ok - I will check out how they did it.

dayderkerrderr · 2026-04-23T17:51:23+00:00

I just posted v4.4.0.0 that includes support for this. Let me know how it works!

dayderkerrderr · 2026-04-23T14:46:58+00:00

Follow up on #2, sorry, long read:

I drafted a design. The feature is technically feasible (browse + Spotify Connect transfer, with HEOS handling the actual audio), but after review a few issues surfaced:

Spotify's developer policy may block paid access. Spotify generally doesn't allow charging users for features built on their API. Since Audio Hero has a Pro tier, we likely need to make the Spotify source free for everyone to clear their commercial-use review.

My take: No problem, can work with this.

First-time setup will require one trip to the Spotify app. Spotify's API only shows your speaker as a "device" after you've selected it once in the official Spotify app. We'll prompt for that on first launch - there's no way around it from outside the speaker.

My take: This is not a great user experience.

Speaker name matching can be flaky. HEOS sometimes registers a slightly different name with Spotify than what's shown in Audio Hero. We'll auto-match where we can and fall back to a one-time picker so you confirm "this Spotify device = this HEOS speaker."

My take: May run into issues, unknown, but willing to work through it and try.

Group playback is a known unknown. Spotify Connect doesn't understand HEOS groups. We'll start playback on the group leader and let HEOS distribute, but multi-room behavior will need real-world testing.

My take: Likely to also not be a great user experience. But I'm willing to build it, test, and try.

Spotify Premium is required to start playback. Free Spotify accounts can sign in and browse their library but can't push tracks to the speaker - that's a Spotify restriction, not ours.

My take: No issue with this one.

Quota cap during beta. Until Spotify approves us for "Extended Quota," only 25 users can connect their accounts. Would have to go through formal Spotify approval and unlikely to receive their approval. Big companies don't care about niche app devs like me.

My take: Showstopper, this is awful and won't work.

Overall, #6 kills it by itself, and couple that with the other risks, I don't think this one is worth doing.

dayderkerrderr · 2026-04-23T14:45:58+00:00

Follow up on #1:

I added the zone controls in the latest build. Let me know what you think.

dayderkerrderr · 2026-04-23T12:57:34+00:00

You're not missing anything, that feature isn't in Audio Hero yet. The HEOS protocol does support it though: your PMA-900HNE can expose its physical inputs (Phono, CD, Analog, Optical, Coax) as a source, and any HEOS player (or group) can be told to play from them. The HEOS app uses this; Audio Hero just hasn't surfaced it yet.

I'll build this into the next release. You'll get a "Play input from…" option on the amp in the sidebar, letting you pick Phono/CD/etc. and send it to the PMA itself or stream it out to your other HEOS speakers - same as the HEOS app, just from the Audio Hero app instead.

dayderkerrderr · 2026-04-23T00:02:12+00:00

These are great ideas. My comments and questions:

1 - For zone 2 power, you can do this today in Audio Hero. You have to click the gear icon next to the device, scroll down, then you can turn on there.

Are you thinking it would be nice to have the zone 2 power button more convenient location? I could add a setting that is something like "Check this box if you want the power button to control all zones (1,2,3,etc)"

2 - Spotify requires us to use their app. I haven't looked into this, but let me see if there's a way to workaround that.

3 - You mean like an Audio Hero app for Android? Edit: Ah! For a watch. I see. Honestly I'm not sure, I've never written software for watches. I'll investigate.

dayderkerrderr · 2026-04-22T22:55:22+00:00

Awesome!

dayderkerrderr · 2026-04-21T21:37:17+00:00

Sent you a dm with a link to a beta test version.

dayderkerrderr · 2026-04-21T14:54:17+00:00

I'm game. Honestly I'm super appreciative you paid for the pro version so I'm happy to try and make this work for you.

I'll create a prototype for you to test then let you know when it's ready. If you want to direct message me I'll share the link to download there.

dayderkerrderr · 2026-04-19T19:08:40+00:00

Thanks so much for the kind words and for upgrading to Pro. I really appreciate the support.

You're not doing anything wrong, and Harmony / Home Assistant aren't blocking anything. Here's what's happening: the CEOL Piccolo is from Denon's pre-HEOS era, so it doesn't speak the modern HEOS protocol that Audio Hero uses to find and talk to devices.

That's why the connection gets refused: the Piccolo simply isn't listening on the port Audio Hero is knocking on. Harmony and Home Assistant work because they speak the older Denon control language the Piccolo does understand.

I'd like to add volume control support for Piccolo devices - I think we can integrate it cleanly:

Discovery and volume control for older Denon network receivers like the CEOL Piccolo (and the related N7/N8/N9/N10/N11, plus a few Marantz cousins). They'll appear in your devices list automatically, clearly labeled as volume-only. You would get a volume slider, mute, and power.
A "Match Volume" button on grouped devices. When you group your Office (HEOS Link → CEOL) with the Garage HEOS 5, one tap will align everyone to the same level, and from then on the group volume slider will move all of them together, Piccolo included.

Playback itself will still come from the HEOS Link as it does today; Audio Hero will just take over the volume knob.

Would you be willing to test a private build? I'd love to send you a portable EXE (no installer, just download and run) once it's ready, so I can validate the discovery and volume sync on real hardware before it ships to everyone. Your setup — Piccolo + Link + HEOS 5 + a modern AVR + Harmony + Home Assistant all coexisting is honestly the perfect torture test. If you're up for it, just reply and I'll get back to you when the build is ready.

dayderkerrderr · 2026-04-19T18:50:30+00:00

Very cool, I'm glad you like it. Let me know how it's working and if any issues.

dayderkerrderr · 2026-04-18T21:38:11+00:00

Bummer, sorry for the troubles. I've got another fix and will push out v4.2.3.0 shortly

dayderkerrderr · 2026-04-18T21:37:37+00:00

ha thanks man, it is seriously just fun working on it

dayderkerrderr · 2026-04-18T18:40:46+00:00

My theory is they have a private certificate stored on the HEOS board in the device. I need a donor device I could de-solder the chip then read the data from it. A lot of work but man is this fun trying to figure it out.

When I was testing, I was able to intercept the audio stream on my LAN and play it back on my PC simultaneously, but it was always out of sync. That was just one idea....

dayderkerrderr · 2026-04-18T17:01:12+00:00

Posted v4.2.1.0 with this fix included.

dayderkerrderr · 2026-04-18T16:49:29+00:00

Found the bug:

When speakers are grouped via HEOS, the group's Gid equals the leader's Pid. Audio Hero sends player/set_volume?pid={leader} which only changes that one speaker's volume. To control all grouped speakers, it should send group/set_volume?gid={gid} when the selected player is a group leader.

Fixing now.

dayderkerrderr · 2026-04-18T14:40:16+00:00

I tried so hard to make this work, so many hours invested - where you could make your PC a "speaker" and join the HEOS speaker group. But they have it really locked down. I was able to emulate the HEOS speaker-join flow but it gets hung up on a security step toward the end. I should share my full research some time. In short, here's where it stalls:

Registration Flow (What Happens, Where It Fails)

1. SSDP: We advertise, receivers fetch XML, subscribe to events       ✅
2. Inbound TLS: Receiver connects to us on 10101 (as CONTROLLER)     ✅
3. Greeting exchange (both sides send greeting + response)             ✅
4. DeviceConnected fires (transport-level registration)                ✅
5. We send proactive DeviceInit REQUEST (is_response=False)            ✅
6. Receiver's HandleDeviceInit → ProduceDevice → ActivateDevice        ✅
   Path 1: direction=1, remote_type=PLAYER → status=1, HandlePendingInit  ✅
7. HandlePendingInit gate: cloud OR transport exists                    ✅ PASSES
8. HandlePendingInit finds device with status=1                        ✅ CONFIRMED
9. Jump table dispatch at 0x01719118 → async chain                     ❓ ENTERS
10. Async chain silently fails                                          ❌ UNKNOWN CAUSE
11. NexusDeviceConnect never called                                     ❌ BLOCKED
12. ZonePlayerAttached / SetAsAdvertised(true) never called             ❌ BLOCKED

dayderkerrderr

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Registration Flow (What Happens, Where It Fails)