As far as I know, none of the Naim devices support IPv6. Is this correct?
Nowadays I don’t want to buy any new device that doesn’t support IPv6.
Will IPv6 ever happen with Naim? Are there any plans to fully support IPv6 in all or some existing devices or in the devices that will come?
I wanted to switch from my SuperUniti to a Nova some years ago but didn’t do it, also because of the missing IPv6 support.
As these are home devices, is there a need for IPV6?
Not really, IPv4 is not going anywhere
Some markets are moving to IPv6, but IPv4 will be around for a long time, there are planned moves to IPv6 thru 2025 & 2030 & the estimated end date for IPv4 is 2040
Hm, so that gives 20 years, although 20 years in Naim terms in just running in time, so @Kuechenradio raises a good question. Will future firmware updates cover IPV6 in the future, or are we saying Naim Streaming products have a 20year life?
Your Internet router will handle Network Address Translation from IPv6 to IPv4 so unless you explicitly need to directly address a client on your LAN using an IPv6 128 bit address I think you’ll be fine regards any Naim audio streamer products.
Thats fine now, but what if the router doesn’t support it in 20 years
Then nothing will work!
I guess it will be a bit like Year 2000, where the only reason we didn’t have mayhem, was because of all the work that was done before replacing/upgrading kit, rewriting software etc. A lot of kit went to landfill back then. Perhaps @Richard.Dane can offer any insight to future plans?
Sorry…
IPv4 and 6 coexist along side each other and have done for years. You almost certainly use it as you request data from the Internet already and probably have done for some time like the rest of us.
The fact a consumer device doesn’t itself support IPv6 isn’t an issue as the devices between it and the Internet are able to take care of the required protocol translation to ensure a request is fullfilled regardless of what version of IP is used.
There are many billions of IPv4 only devices that will carry on sending and receiving data for decades to come in most cases.
If a current Naim ND stops working in 20 years time it’s far more likely to be because of something other than IP.
We can all come back together in October 2040 and see how you’re doing anyway, just in case.
Ooh, I hope not. All my kit is already 20 years old, and is as fresh as the day I got it, and hope it will carry on for another 20 years. I do understand the IPV4/V6 coexistence (worked in IT all my life), and generally new kit tends to support both, even though in reality, most people/businesses don’t enable it (yet). So it would be surprising to know that Naim dont have any future plans for existing kit.
Indeed… From traces I have taken, Roon uses IPv6 to stream from Qobuz, but uses IPv4 to send to the Naim device.
Home devices might have more of a need. There’s more and more of them (IoT), and it removes the need for NAT. Most ISPs provide private individuals with a single IP (v4), where for businesses a /29 is quite common.
It’s not enough of a reason to not get something, but I’m always astonished when new products have come out in the last couple of years without support.
What I do not understand is, how does the mentioned translation from IPv4 to IPv6 or vice versa works in a router? Can someone explain it in detail, please?
I know, IPv4 will not disappear in the near future and probably never will, but what about services that will only “speak” IPv6 then? How do I connect to these services over IPv4 (if IPv4 is the only option in Naim products)?
My network connection is currently a dual stack connection (Fiber, German Telekom), which means connections are made with IPv6 if possible, with a fallback to IPv4. Not translations take place. For example Spotify is using IPv6 a lot on non-Naim devices.
Precisely, one example of many…
Yes IPv6 is preferable as it does away with the need for NAT and provides a considerably larger address space than IPv4, one of the main differences between them.
The further you go in to the network core of your ISP and within the peering backbone of the public Internet, the more you’ll encounter v6 traffic. Closer to the edge and within your home in particular, the variety, age and capabilities of the multitude of consumer equipment means that the Internet will need to function in such a way that v4 and v6 traffic can coexist and be translated at a protocol level where required by either the sender or the receiver.
An example of how that may be handled is NAT-PT which provides a bi-directional bridge between hosts on an IPv4 subnet and those on an IPv6 subnet.
This Protocol Translation (PT) is handled transparently to the end user or network hosts. There had to be a means for fallback and coexistance as not all devices can or will in the future be able to support a full IPv6 IP stack natively.
What I’m NOT saying here is that the Naim ND products won’t at some point in the next 20 years receive an update that enables v6 support.
The dependencies on that could be numerous, what embedded OS is being used, what Linux Kernel is used, what are the Ethernet drivers able to support in terms of IP routing, are there any memory/buffer constraints, what iptables are supported in the hardware, a future move to an SDN client stack in the ND’s and so on.
If for any reason Naim will not or cannot enable IPv6 natively in the ND streamers, the network between them and the source of the data they are requesting (Qobuz, Tidal, TuneIn) will work out how to fullfill the request in such a way that the ND streamer won’t be aware if IPv6 has been involved or not by the use of NAT-PT and other translation/bridging capabilities within the switching fabric.
Good question ref ipv6.
On newer Naim hardware it fully supports ipv6 in the operating system, but we have purposely disabled it for now.
Why? UPnP, Samba and ipv6 can be problematic depending on the mix of NAS’s and software used. ipv6 can also expose quirky bugs in home wifi routers and the only solution is to swap them out for a newer superior router. For some isp’s this is not so easy as the router is locked to their account.
Ideally I would like to get ipv6 support enabled as default in about 24 months, but we might have to put in an advanced feature to disable it.
Overall we want the user experience as smooth as possible which means we need a critical mass of ipv6 stable, compliant equipment and software apps to be out there.
Best
Steve Harris
Software Director
Naim Audio Ltd.
Thank you Steve. Just as I would imagine from a reliable company. Can you say which kit would or wouldn’t be IPV6 supported in the future?
Hi @GadgetMan
Atom, Star, Nova, ND5XS2, NDX2, ND555, Muso gen2 and Qb Gen2 are all ipv6 ready, but currently disabled. Naturally this applies to all future new products as well.
Best
Steve
Thanks Steve - can believe you responded on a Sunday night.