Questions on using Roon

I encourage you to contact Room - they have good customer service and if you go to their website the chat is with an actual person.

Yeah you gonna need some type of computer to Run the Roon Core. Find an old imac or a laptop and install the Roon Core. Then you configure your streaming service in Roon or index local storage of music files. Then configure you endpoint , In your case that would be the BS Node. Although sub-optimatl it all should work over wifi.

Roon has three pieces to its software architecture: Core (server), Renderer (playback), Client (controller). All three of these things can be one computer, like if you install everything on one computer and then just listen to speakers or headphones connected to your computer. Or all three things can be different pieces of hardware, like Core on a computer, Renderer as your Node 2i, and Client as the Roon app on your iPad.

The reason the Core needs to be on a computer is because it is a persistent server like a web server or mail server providing Roon service to anyone on the network. It still runs and does work if any of the Renderers or Clients are turned off. It doesn't need to be a powerful computer, unless you start turning on a bunch of extra processing stuff, but it does need to be always on.

Any of the Core, Renderer, and Client devices can be on Wi-Fi if supported by the device. Desktop and laptop computers, and phones/tablets, are all pretty much guaranteed to work over Wi-Fi, so that covers the Core and Client devices. But Renderers may not support Wi-Fi in which case you'll need to purchase a Wi-Fi extender.

OK thanks for the details.  I have a laptop PC I could dedicate for the purpose of running the Core program.  The computers have fans and make some noise so it would be nice to put it in a different room, then hopefully the endpoints can run off wifi in the room where the music is played.