Help / Remote listening
Listening away from home (Tailscale)
You can reach your own music library from your phone - on the road, at work, anywhere - without opening your home network to the internet. The trick is a free tool called Tailscale, which builds a small private, encrypted network between just your own devices and lets your phone talk to your home PC as if it were sitting right next to it.
How it works
Vesari Stylus already runs a personal streaming server (an OpenSubsonic server) whenever the app is open. On your home Wi-Fi, a Subsonic app on your phone can connect to it straight away. To keep that working when you leave the house, Tailscale joins your phone and your PC into one private network - so the connection travels over an encrypted tunnel and nothing is exposed to the public internet. No ports to open, no router settings to change.
Remote streaming is included free - there's no device limit and no extra charge for listening away from home.
Turn on remote access first
Remote access is off by default for your privacy - you have to switch it on.
- Open Settings → Remote Access in Vesari Stylus.
- Turn on remote access, then note the username (
admin) and the auto-generated password shown there - you'll need both on your phone.
Set up Tailscale
- Create a free account at tailscale.com.
- Install Tailscale on your home PC and sign in.
- Install the Tailscale app on your phone and sign in with the same account.
- In the Tailscale app, find your home PC in the device list and copy its Tailscale address (a private address only your own devices can reach).
Once both devices are signed in, they're on the same private network - even over mobile data.
Point your Subsonic app at your PC
- In your Subsonic app on the phone, add a new server.
- For the server address, use your PC's Tailscale address in place of the usual home-network address.
- Enter the username and password from Settings → Remote Access.
- Browse your library and press play.
If you're not sure which app to use, any OpenSubsonic-compatible player will work. Test the connection once on your home Wi-Fi first, then switch to mobile data to confirm it still reaches home.
Keep the PC running
Your library is served by the app on your home PC, so that PC needs to be on and running Vesari Stylus while you listen remotely. There's no always-on background server yet, so if the PC sleeps or the app closes, streaming pauses until it's back. Leaving the machine awake with the app open is all it takes.
A couple of things to know
- Big lossless files use data. Your app can send a smaller, more data-friendly stream for cellular - set a bitrate limit in your Subsonic app if you're watching your data allowance.
- Remote playback is convenience listening. It goes through your phone's normal audio path, so the app's bit-perfect output is really a feature of your home setup rather than the trip.