Question Home Network music accessible away from home?

tinpanalley

Golden Member
Jul 13, 2011
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I don't know if this is do-able. Of course I can access my home network SMB shares on my phone while I'm at home, so I don't need to ONLY play my large music collection from the computer itself. But I'm going to be working somewhere where I can have my own music on and thought it would be super convenient to just be able to "tap in" to my home network from away on an older extra phone I have to listen to music rather than loading it on the phone itself.

So, first question is, whether this is doable (I run Win 10 at home and SMB share folders to devices at home already).
Second question is, is that constant connection to my home music going to drain my data usage and battery more than just having the music on the phone itself?

Thank you for any help!
 

mxnerd

Diamond Member
Jul 6, 2007
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Plex alternative

 

ch33zw1z

Lifer
Nov 4, 2004
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First question: Sure, it's doable, see the post above. I know a couple people that use Plex to stream to their phones while not at home

Second question: Yes, the constant connection will use data, but to what extent depends on your configuration. Such as the quality, file type, etc...

As far as the battery goes, yea....it will use more. In my XP, the display is typically the biggest battery drain in mobile devices. So if you just kicked off a playlist and it played while the screen was off, I wouldn't think you'd see a huge drain on the battery. Obviously, YMMV, depending on phone config.
 
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mv2devnull

Golden Member
Apr 13, 2010
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Music from phone vs from server. Both produce sound. That part of battery consumption is same.
One reads data from phone's storage ("flash disk"). The other reads from network; with radio communication.
Yes, there is probably a difference.
 
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tinpanalley

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Jul 13, 2011
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Ok. Thanks guys. I now know that I'll have WiFi so that's huge. I can also keep my phone plugged in if needs be. I guess I just need to know how much running Plex becomes obtrusive on my PC or requires setting up an annoying network that makes things complicated on the desktop for my already set up SMB shares (I don't know any of this, obviously, I'm just theorising). I'll have to look into how Plex works and what I'm limited to if I don't pay. Surely it has some kind of subscription model like everything else.
I literally need access to my music and nothing else and in nothing more than folder format. I don't use playlists, streaming services or anything like that. Does anyone have any recommendations for simple folder player apps for Android?
 

Netopia

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
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In the end, the battery cost for accessing a home network at work made me go with just running music files off an older phone. Battery died less quickly that way. But thanks!

Install one of the programs that allows you to connect two or more devices directly on a completely separate VPN between you and your server. I set up something like this for a friend. His kid went away to university, but all his music was on the home server. My friend also wanted to be able to listen to his music while at work (it was cleared with the IT Director) so I installed, I believe. LogMeIn Hamachi (free for up to 5 computers I believe). When either he or his son wanted to listen to music, they just fired up the VPN and listed.

Now neither of these was a phone or tablet. You might have to hunt around for one of these tools that has clients for both PC/MAC/Linux AND android. Here's a page to get you started looking, if this even sounds interesting to you.

Free client to client VPN Programs

I truly hope this helps. If not, at least you'll learn some new stuff! :)
 
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Netopia

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And.... OOPS. I guess I only saw that you were quoting my suggestion and I missed your text. Glad you have a solution that fits! I'll leave the previous post up for anyone who might be needing something similar.
 
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tinpanalley

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Jul 13, 2011
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And.... OOPS. I guess I only saw that you were quoting my suggestion and I missed your text. Glad you have a solution that fits! I'll leave the previous post up for anyone who might be needing something similar.
I'll look at it anyway. The only problem, as I said, is that a few hours reading music from Plex on my phone drained the battery about 40% faster than just playing files off my phone. Even though it takes a while to copy music and update the phone with music it's not as bad as losing battery life that quickly. But I'll look at your method.
 

Netopia

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Oct 9, 1999
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I don't know... from what you've stated you might have already found the best solution. Does your regular cell accept micro-SD Cards? If so, buying a huge one might be your easiest solution. Then you only need to carry one phone!
 
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mxnerd

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Jul 6, 2007
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Local files will always beat streaming from network, since reading files locally does not require transform files into a series of ethernet data frames, encrypt them, transmit them through many network routes, decrypt them and reassemble at the other end of the network, and retransmission if there is any error.

Streaming from other places absolutely takes a lot more resource and computing power than just reading a file locally.
 
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tinpanalley

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Jul 13, 2011
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I don't know... from what you've stated you might have already found the best solution. Does your regular cell accept micro-SD Cards? If so, buying a huge one might be your easiest solution. Then you only need to carry one phone!
That makes total sense practically and logistically. However, I don't like mixing my devices. My phone is my phone. I've spent too long in my life having a communication device and a separate portable audio device for listening to my curated catalogue in specific types of audio files to now change that and start putting music on my phone. It just makes no sense to me because of what I'm used to. Plus I don't like anything unnecessary killing my phone battery. Besides the music player phone goes in my bag and I have it out where I work to connect to the Bluetooth speakers we have.
I hear what you're saying, and I appreciate it, but I think I may be too 20th century to think otherwise.
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
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www.anyf.ca
Jellyfin might be worth looking into as well, I recently set it up myself, mostly for movies/tv shows but it does music too. Once you have it setup it's just a web page, so you can then access it via VPN or SSH tunnel or other remote access method of choice. I was using Kodi for movies but I found it would always glitch out and require to be updated/reinstalled and then I would lose all my "watched" indicators... and those would glitch out too after a while and not even apply. With Jellyfin everything is done server side which is nice. Hopefully this will work out long term at least...
 

pcslookout

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Mar 18, 2007
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I don't know if this is do-able. Of course I can access my home network SMB shares on my phone while I'm at home, so I don't need to ONLY play my large music collection from the computer itself. But I'm going to be working somewhere where I can have my own music on and thought it would be super convenient to just be able to "tap in" to my home network from away on an older extra phone I have to listen to music rather than loading it on the phone itself.

So, first question is, whether this is doable (I run Win 10 at home and SMB share folders to devices at home already).
Second question is, is that constant connection to my home music going to drain my data usage and battery more than just having the music on the phone itself?

Thank you for any help!

iOS or Android ?
 

tinpanalley

Golden Member
Jul 13, 2011
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Just to finish this thread off, Ive gone with an older Android phone I had and just wiped everything but my music player app and a few tools. Syncs to the blutooth, keeps tons of music straight from my collection onto microsd, works like a charm.