Some observations on running the Naim App on Android:
It works better on Android versions 6.0 and above, it appears to be quite glitchy on 5.1, and also works a little better on 8.1 than on 6.01 (my 'phone and tablet have the same CPU, but different OS).
It prefers to be run on hardware that isn’t in the vary basic / slow category - these seem to exacerbate the glitchyness and it doesn’t seem to be able to recover itself fast enough.
Having moved to a medium speed Android 8.1 tablet (Lenovo Tab4 8 Plus) - upgrading from a slow Intel powered Android 5.1 tablet - it seems much more stable and responsive., and slightly better than the same CPU on the Android 6.0.1 'phone I use.
CPU for both is a snapdragon 625 (Cortex A53 @ 2GHz), so it’s no speed demon.
I have a Kindle Fire HD which runs a variant of Android 5 which works really well but my phone, an Honor View 10 with Android Pie, a souper douper processor, 6gb ram has discovery issues, especially with one Muso QB
OK, that it works on the Fire tablets is very interesting as, for a given spec level, they’re quite a bit cheaper than most of the other basic Android tablets. The question is will Naim undertake to continue supporting the Fire tablets going forward.
Could the problem be with Pie? Android 9 has quite a different internal structure to Androids 4 to 8.
My gripe is that if it’s no longer optimised for slower devices and older tablets, replacing a £120 tablet every 3 to 4 years, just to get an efficient remote control for the Naim system is an unnecessary waste (money and particularly resources).
To use on the Fire tablets you have to sideload the application. I have gone the whole hog and loaded the Google framework and Play Store which makes the whole portfolio of applications available to install. There are some guides on the net that are easy to follow.
The interface is a bit restricted, the launcher is highly customised and adding an alternative launcher is clunky and not worthwhile. I believe it runs Android 5.0.
The Fire resides upstairs in the bedroom as an occasional use tablet and for control of the QB upstairs. I picked it up for a song £30 if I remember correctly when Amazon had a sale of sales on refurbished tablets. It works well enough, the screen is nice and it has good battery life.
I need to work through the discovery issue on my Honor. It finds my NDS and 2 QB’s, just ot the kitchen QB which is odd. This device is wireless but so is the upstairs one.
Ooh, that’s a bit weird, it always being the same one that it can’t find!
I wonder if it’s anything to do with the timing of the responses to the network broadcast messages; maybe the kitchen QB is always the first to respond or always the last?
The new Android versions and the hardware changes that have been made is really very helpful for everyone. You may sometimes face chrome keeps crashing which can be easily fixed.
I have two ssid’s one for 2.4ghz and the other for 5ghz. The Honor was on the 5ghz (Muso on 2.4ghz). Switching the Honor to 2.4 ghz has brought the kitchen Muso back in. Reversing loses it.
It’s still peculiar though as there is a second Muso on wireless, the other one and my NDS are wired.
The other complication is that we have 2 access ponts, one on the Draytek router and a second access pont, also Drayek. They both use the same ssids and they should hand off between them as they are centrally managed and configured as such.