When using Airplay from an iPhone or similar, is there any benefit to using Ethernet to connect a streamer such as a Wiim Pro?
I think that when using a service that’s natively supported by the Wiim, like Spotify, your phone uses WiFi to tell the Wiim what to play. Then the music is transmitted via Ethernet. It’s easy to see the benefit of a fast, stable Ethernet connection there.
But with Airplay, the only active connection would be the wireless one between the phone and the Wiim, right? Would Ethernet going into the Wiim have any effect in this situation?
You must log in or register to comment.
The only benefit is if you have patchy wifi. If you have a weak wifi signal, or interference from neighbours wifi, you’ll get packet loss and latency which could result in streaming issues. Like, the music stopping and caching for a second or two. If your wifi is fine, use it.
Streaming music uses fuck all bandwidth. Ethernet is recommended for streaming 4K video for sure.
But with Airplay, the only active connection would be the wireless one between the phone and the Wiim, right?
Maybe.
I’m not familiar with the internals of Airplay but I won’t be surprised if it works like UPnP.
In case of UPnP, the phone is a control point. It simply tells the renderer (the one doing the playback) the URL of the track on the server.
A simple check is to disconnect your phone from the Wi-Fi. If playback continues, you know the renderer pulls the audio straight from the server.
Airplay only works this way when the endpoint is an apple device (like a HomePod or appletv). When airplaying to third party devices, the phone is the source for the complete data stream which may be compressed from the original file on the AM server.
That’s what I suspected. In this case, Ethernet brings nothing to the table, as I understand it.
The Airplay device pulls data from the Internet itself. So yes hard wired could make a difference depending on how poor your wifi is.
I always hardwire where possible.
The Airplay device – in the case of iPhone to Wiim – is probably the iPhone. So that’s what would be pulling data from the Internet. Therefore, I think Ethernet wouldn’t be used at all.
There are 7 layers to the OSI model, the basis for Ethernet. Layer 1 is the physical layer. Whether WiFi, twisted pairs, fiber, coax or pigeons, none of the other 6 layers care. Unless the phone needs to do a WiFi Direct connection, it makes no difference whether the phone and streamer both talk over WiFi or the phone talks to the access point and the streamer talks over CAT6, it makes no difference to layers 2-7.