Meaning she would use the mini, and I would use the pro.?You may want to add a WiiM mini and connect it to the Pro's optical input.
If you turn on Pro's optical auto-sensing, you don't have to manually switch inputs.
Should I use Chromecast or Alexa Cast?
- Thread starter davidc
- Start date
Yes, but you can also give the Pro to her.
Brantome
Moderator
This isn’t a Wiim issue, it’s how Amazon Music works. You’d have the same issue if you were trying to Alexacast to an echo device as it’s all account based - the device you’re casting to and the Amazon Music app you’re casting from need to be in the same Alexa/Amazon Music account. AlexaCast isn’t account agnostic like Spotify Connect which will connect to any compatible device on your network.
In the meantime, if you have the WiiM Home app linked to your Alexa account, both you and your wife should be able to log in to that account on each of your phones I.e. she won’t be using her amazon music account but yours. However, as I mentioned, that might mess up the recommendations you’ll get from Amazon Music as it’ll be based in both what you and your wife have played on that account. Your Amazon Music family subscription allows up to six streams across one or more accounts, so you could still be playing music on your phone while she’s playing to the WiiM using your account.
Later today, I’ll set up a few Amazon Music accounts (I share a family sub too) and see if it’s sufficient to just change the Alexa account entry in the WiiM home app to allow different Amazon Music apps to AlexaCast to the same WiiM device.
Brantome
Moderator
Is ChromeCast promiscuous like Spotify and doesn’t care about which Google account the device is in I.e. could I cast to a friend’s CC device even though my and their Google account is different? Amazon Music/AlexaCast is tied to the same account.Demote the wife to chromecast....
I know you already reset the wiim and didn't enable it, but doing so won't prevent you from being able to alexacast to it.
Mr Ee
Major Contributor
I reckon so. Anyone in my family, i.e. on the network, can chromecast to any CC device.
For audio, that's either an old CCA puck that I haven't 'converted' to a wiim (because it's attached to a hifi I don't use!), or to cast (mostly spotify) to a "video" CC stick into a tv then on to a wiim.
Brantome
Moderator
Hi, played around a little with this this morning, and as I suspected, the key is the Amazon account the WiiM is linked to via the Alexa menu entry on the WiiM Home Browse page.
I have a second account (let’s call it B) which is part of my Amazon Music family subscription. When I log into that account on my Amazon Music app on my phone , it can’t see the WiiM that’s connected to my usual Alexa account (let’s call it A). On my Ipad, my Amazon Music app logged into account A can see the WiiM.
If I disconnect account A under the Alexa menu in the WiiM Home app and connect account B (watch the profile icon on the Alexa page to make sure you’re logged out of the old account as it can use the old credentials to automatically re login without asking for credentials), the situation is reversed. My account A Amazon Music app on my ipad no longer sees the WiiM as an AlexaCast target, but my phone account B Amazon music app now can. Note that I hadn’t changed the amazon music connection in the WiiM Home app at all - it’s independent of the Alexa linkage so I could still play my account A amazon music directly to the WiiM using the WiiM app.
Hopefully that will provide you with enough info as how you want to set things up and use Amazon Music - either thru a shared music account and AlexaCast from any phone/tablet; or by changing the linked Alexa account in the WiiM Home app and AlexaCast; or via the WiiM app; or independent of Alexa account using ChromeCast, albeit constrained to HD 16/44.1 quality.
Phew…
Mr Ee
Major Contributor
Nice work!Hi, played around a little with this this morning, and as I suspected, the key is the Amazon account the WiiM is linked to via the Alexa menu entry on the WiiM Home Browse page.
I have a second account (let’s call it B) which is part of my Amazon Music family subscription. When I log into that account on my Amazon Music app on my phone , it can’t see the WiiM that’s connected to my usual Alexa account (let’s call it A). On my Ipad, my Amazon Music app logged into account A can see the WiiM.
If I disconnect account A under the Alexa menu in the WiiM Home app and connect account B (watch the profile icon on the Alexa page to make sure you’re logged out of the old account as it can use the old credentials to automatically re login without asking for credentials), the situation is reversed. My account A Amazon Music app on my ipad no longer sees the WiiM as an AlexaCast target, but my phone account B Amazon music app now can. Note that I hadn’t changed the amazon music connection in the WiiM Home app at all - it’s independent of the Alexa linkage so I could still play my account A amazon music directly to the WiiM using the WiiM app.
Hopefully that will provide you with enough info as how you want to set things up and use Amazon Music - either thru a shared music account and AlexaCast from any phone/tablet; or by changing the linked Alexa account in the WiiM Home app and AlexaCast; or via the WiiM app; or independent of Alexa account using ChromeCast, albeit constrained to HD 16/44.1 quality.
Phew…
Seems to me the 'best' way would be for one person to use the wiim app and the other to use the amazon app.
From my experience, the wiimer (no, not the @Wiimer) wouldn't be missing out on the amazon app experience much
Although, I remember now that the wiimer won't be able to add to favourites etc., in case that's a deal breaker...
And, finally, I'm very happy with my "constrained" 44.1/16 music
Brantome
Moderator
Just takes me a wee while these days to get my head back round things that I may not have used for a while, or had got used to one mode of working. My memory is at least refreshedI now regret the easy handle. I'm sorry for the hassle.
Hi, played around a little with this this morning, and as I suspected, the key is the Amazon account the WiiM is linked to via the Alexa menu entry on the WiiM Home Browse page.
I have a second account (let’s call it B) which is part of my Amazon Music family subscription. When I log into that account on my Amazon Music app on my phone , it can’t see the WiiM that’s connected to my usual Alexa account (let’s call it A). On my Ipad, my Amazon Music app logged into account A can see the WiiM.
If I disconnect account A under the Alexa menu in the WiiM Home app and connect account B (watch the profile icon on the Alexa page to make sure you’re logged out of the old account as it can use the old credentials to automatically re login without asking for credentials), the situation is reversed. My account A Amazon Music app on my ipad no longer sees the WiiM as an AlexaCast target, but my phone account B Amazon music app now can. Note that I hadn’t changed the amazon music connection in the WiiM Home app at all - it’s independent of the Alexa linkage so I could still play my account A amazon music directly to the WiiM using the WiiM app.
Hopefully that will provide you with enough info as how you want to set things up and use Amazon Music - either thru a shared music account and AlexaCast from any phone/tablet; or by changing the linked Alexa account in the WiiM Home app and AlexaCast; or via the WiiM app; or independent of Alexa account using ChromeCast, albeit constrained to HD 16/44.1 quality.
Phew…
Thanks again for your help, Brantome.
Since I can't really get my wife to do a bunch of switching around of connections, it seems my choices are:
1. Set her phone to use Chromecast (at a quality loss) and mine to use Alexa Cast, both having to be logged into the same Amazon Music account. (I'm not sure I have that correct. If so, both phones will show the same thing on the Amazon interface, and we could sit next to each other on the couch and fight to change the music choices back and forth?)
2. Buy a used cheap iPad or Android tablet and use it like we would a remote control for the TV. It sits on the couch and connects to Amazon and Wiim via our home WiFi, so no cell plan is needed. Since we only listen to music at home, and we have only one home audio system, and no other home Alexa or Google Home stuff. This might also save a couple of bucks since I won't have to have a family Amazon Music account since this would be the only source we use Amazon Music to stream.
Brantome
Moderator
1. One of you indeed could use AlexaCast from the Amazon Music app while the other uses ChromeCast. You wouldn't need to use the same music account though, but could. As you have the family subscription (which has a six stream limit, not account or device limit), one of you could be playing music to the WiiM either thru the WiiM app, Amazon Music app via AlexaCast, Chromecast or even Airplay or Bluetooth, or Alexa, while the other could be listening via headphones from the Amazon Music app to a different stream on that same or different account.
2. If you are happy with just one stream at a time and a shared music account, the cheaper Amazon Music individual plan would suffice. You'd then just have one account to contend with and could log into that on as many devices as you wish, so you could both still use your phone or tablet/PC and have that account linked to your WiiM device. However, given you'd be one a one stream plan, one of you couldn't be playing something to the WiiM and the second person also playing something else via headphones at the same time as in my example above. You wouldn't need another ipad/tablet as your phones would already be remote controls by dint of having the Amazon Music (or indeed) WiiM app linked to the same amazon music account.
Did you get the family plan because you both wanted to be able to play different things at the same time, or did you think you needed it to ascess the service from more than one device, which you don't?
I got the family plan just a couple of days ago in an attempt to solve this overall problem. We don't need the family plan, though.
Since we won't be listening to two different things simultaneously, and we don't really care about recommendations the app would give us, the individual plan would work. But I'd still have to use Chromecast for her and Alexa cast for me to make it work easily, correct?
Another option is to get a Fire tablet (only $100 or less), install the Google Play Store on it, and download the WiiM app. The advantage here would be a much bigger screen to browse the music on, and since we'd always be listening to music at the same time, we wouldn't have to worry about which device is connected to WiiM, correct?
EDIT: It appears that the WiiM Home app is now available as a direct download from Amazon apps? https://www.amazon.com/Linkplay-WiiM-Home/dp/B09RDSN1L6
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Brantome
Moderator
No, if she was logged into the Amazon Music app on another device using the same account as you, she could use AlexaCast as well. Just not at the same time as you were AlexaCasting from your device - well, she could but she'd grab control
As I say, you can log into you Amazon Music account on as many devices as you want.You'd be better using the Amazon Music app and AlexaCast from the Fire tablet - it supports landscape mode while the WiiM Home android version currently doesn't (but it's in the pipeline) plus...
... that looks like an old non-functioning link. I've just checked on my Fire HD 11 Max and the WiiM Home app is still not available in the Amazon AppStore. However, as you commented elsewhere, you can install the Google Play Store as per the video I posted, but you're still faced with not having landscape mode for the WiiM app. That might not be an issue if you only occasionally need to access it to configurate your WiiM, and use the Amazon Music app and AlexaCast for music
Mr Ee
Major Contributor
Try it - I think you might find that you probably can't tell the difference.
Apart from CC not being gapless.
No, if she was logged into the Amazon Music app on another device using the same account as you, she could use AlexaCast as well. Just not at the same time as you were AlexaCasting from your device - well, she could but she'd grab control
You'd be better using the Amazon Music app and AlexaCast from the Fire tablet - it supports landscape mode while the WiiM Home android version currently doesn't (but it's in the pipeline) plus...
... that looks like an old non-functioning link. I've just checked on my Fire HD 11 Max and the WiiM Home app is still not available in the Amazon AppStore. However, as you commented elsewhere, you can install the Google Play Store as per the video I posted, but you're still faced with not having landscape mode for the WiiM app. That might not be an issue if you only occasionally need to access it to configurate your WiiM, and use the Amazon Music app and AlexaCast for music
I tried using both our phones with the same account, but it was just too confusing for her regarding grabbing control by accident as such.
So, I also think the best idea is to buy an Amazon Fire tablet, side-load the Google Play Store, download the Wiim Home app, and use it as the single device. I don't think that WiiM not being able to be used in landscape mode is a big deal, and even in portrait mode, it may be bigger than our cell phones.
Sound right? If so I'm gonna order it now, and it'll be delivered
Well, everything seems to be working fine with the Fire tablet. In addition, it appears that one phone/tablet can easily take over from the other just by making a music selection. Part of this may have been the Amazon app and WiiM app update of a couple of days ago.
I want to thank Brantome for his excellent help through this process. He was also a great help on the Audio Science Review forum as well!
I want to thank Brantome for his excellent help through this process. He was also a great help on the Audio Science Review forum as well!
