For Amazon Music you can also use the Amazon App rather than the HEOS app and beam the music through the chromecast option in the Amazon App. For Spotify you don't ever have to use the HEOs app, in fact there isn't a way to use the HEOS app for Spotify, its all done through Spotify Connect on the Spotify App. but I don't want to have to use it for everything as I'm sure Spotify and other apps will always be superior to Denon trying to work with all of them.
Chromecast speakers work this way too, showing up as an option to "cast" the music to.ĭoes the Heos ecosystem work like this too, selectable from Spotify app, etc (I found one limitation that the SiriusXM app doesn't do this well)? Or do I actually have to use the crappy Heos app to select my music? I could see having to use the Heos app to do something more complicated like bring audio from an audio input into the ecosystem to play in another room. Then I use the Spotify app or Amazon music app or Alexa voice control to select the music and room/group I want to stream to ("Alexa, play Kenny Chesney on Spotify on Downstairs"). I simply did all my stereo pairings, renaming, and multi-room grouping in the relevant app once. But I have lots of echo devices and had a Sonos device before and I didn't use the Sonos app nor do I really use the Alexa app. What gives me hesitation about the Heos route is all the complaining you see online about the Heos app.
partially because there are claims out on the web that the audio quality is better than Sonos (especially for music which I care more about), and partially because I get a 40% supplier discount with Denon vs 15% with Sonos (I'm an analog semiconductor engineer that supplies to both companies).
A while back I posted this comparison of Echo vs Sonos