Help  /  Remote listening

Choosing and setting up a phone app

Vesari Stylus has no phone app of its own. It runs a small OpenSubsonic server instead, so the app on your phone is yours to choose. Here is how to pick one and what to type into it.

Any OpenSubsonic client will do

The server speaks the OpenSubsonic API, which many third party players support, and Settings names Symfonium, substreamer and play:Sub as examples. Other OpenSubsonic clients connect the same way. Choose on what the app does well: offline downloads, car mode, gapless playback, a widget you like.

One requirement narrows the field: the server is HTTPS only, with a certificate it signs itself, so your client needs some way to accept a certificate no public authority stands behind. If yours refuses outright, remote access, certificates and the firewall covers the options.

Streaming is free on every tier, the number of connected devices is not capped, and nothing on the phone side depends on your licence.

Three things to collect on the PC

1. Open Settings, choose the Advanced tab, and find the Remote Access group. Tick Enable remote access, then close Vesari Stylus and start it again. Nothing listens on the network until you do, and the server comes up on the next launch, not the moment you tick the box.
2. In the same group, press Copy beside OpenSubsonic Password. It is 20 random letters and digits, and case sensitive, so copy it rather than retyping it.
3. Find your PC's address on your home network. Windows shows it in the properties of the Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection.

Leave the API Bearer Token alone. It sits next to the password, but it belongs to a different interface and no OpenSubsonic app will accept it.

What to enter in the phone app

Add a server and fill in three fields:

• Server address: https://, then your PC's home network address, then :4242. For example, https://192.168.1.20:4242. Both the https:// and the port are required.
• Username: admin
• Password: the one you copied.

Keep the phone on the same Wi-Fi as the PC for the first test, and off any guest network. Your client will complain about the certificate; look for a "trust this certificate" or "accept self signed" option and take it.

What your phone will see, and what it will not

Once you are in, the app browses artists, albums and genres, searches, shows cover art, and lists the same playlists as the desktop. Playlists you create or edit on the phone go straight into your library: they are the desktop's own playlists, not copies.

Star a track and it becomes a favourite too, though the desktop reads its hearts once per session: a star set from the phone appears the next time you start Vesari Stylus, not instantly.

Several things do not travel:

• Ratings go nowhere useful. A client can set one and the server files it away, but nothing reads it back, on the desktop or the phone. The heart is the annotation that counts.
• Plays from the phone are not counted. Clients report them and the server accepts the report without recording it, so your listening history stays a record of what you played on the PC.
• Lyrics stay on the desktop. There is no lyrics endpoint, so a client's lyrics tab stays blank unless the app has a source of its own.
• Podcasts, internet radio and video are not implemented, and saved resume positions always come back empty.
• Album and artist notes need a key. They come from Last.fm. Paste a free Last.fm API Key into the Authentication tab of Settings and those panels fill in; without one they stay blank.
• Tracks inside a single file album cannot be streamed. A CUE track has no file of its own, so the server refuses it. See Single-file albums and CUE sheets.

Large files on a small connection

The server can shrink a track on the way out, and only when your client asks. Two requests trigger it: a maximum bitrate, or a named streaming format. Set a bitrate cap for mobile data and a lossless album is re-encoded for the trip, while the file at home is untouched. Ask for neither and you get the original bytes.

When your client names no format, the server encodes Opus, and the result is capped at 320 kbps however high the client asks. Downloads are never converted, so an offline copy on the phone is the real file. Lossless, DTS and DSD are the sources flagged as worth converting, most phones being unable to decode them; see DSD files.

A converted stream is made as it plays, so seeking restarts the conversion from the new point and may pause for a moment. Four conversions run at once, and past that the original file is sent instead. Playback goes through the phone's own audio path, so treat remote listening as convenience rather than a substitute for your main rig.

If it will not connect

Work through my phone cannot reach the library, then remote access, certificates and the firewall. To listen from outside the house, see listening away from home. If none of that explains it, use Report a Bug on the Support tab of Settings, naming the client and quoting what it said: Is this a bug? How to report it.

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