Another New Lumin User

Thanks, guys. I'm still reading at the Lumin website.

I thought I’d post an update. At this point, I’m subscribed to Tidal’s top service, and enjoy it. Haven’t really tried anything else. The following comments are regarding the Lumin app streaming Tidal, and the Tidal app itself. The Lumin app is a disappointment, many of the things that are available at Tidal’s site just plain don’t show up on the Lumin app. Some are searchable on the Lumin app, after you know the name, others won’t show up. This is after a lot of evenings looking at Tidal on my desktop machine, and Tidal on the Lumin app on my new (recommended by Lumin) IPad. On a scale of 1-10, I’d give the Lumin app a 4. Now, here’s the weird part - after looking at the Tidal interface, I was puzzled that I couldn’t output from it directly to the T2, there was no visible option for that, or so it seemed. Only options for the computer speakers, headphones, etc. Then magically one evening, the Lumin T2 was among the options, I connected, it was great. The next evening, no Lumin option again, weird. I restarted Tidal, the option was again available. Another night, I had to restart the T2 for the option to show itself, so I’m missing something, or it’s a bit quirky, but once connected, the Tidal interface with all it’s features is head and shoulders above the Lumin app running Tidal.
Obviously, being new to all of this, it seems likely that I’m still overlooking some major details, but this is what I’ve found so far. All software on both interfaces are up to date, and the T2 is connected as per Lumin’s instructions. It’s been fun, mostly, and sounds great.

Lumin is constrained to the features available to them by the Tidal supplied API just like the rest of the streamer manufacturers.  I have owned streamers with different apps from four and none of them have all of the features of the desktop app and never will until Tidal makes it available to them.  You can now try Tidal Connect and see if that is more satisfactory to you but as it is relatively new they are still working through some bugs.

Thanks, jackd, makes sense, of course. At this point, I'm mostly using Tidal on my desktop, there's just too much missing, otherwise. I'll keep exploring.

Your Lumin T2 "magically" became available as an endpoint from within the Tidal app because Tidal Connect was included in a recent Lumin firmware update. You can use this from the Tidal app on your desktop/laptop or mobile devices.

The Lumin app itself is very primitive (a 4 of 10 rating is IMO generous), and this will not likely improve as the streaming services don’t expose much of their deep functionality via APIs (as jackd rightly pointed out). They’d much rather you use the Tidal app (eg) instead of a third party app. This is unlikely to change.

I own a T2 and have been using Tidal Connect exclusively since it was made available. It’s been very stable for me (Spotify Connect on the other hand, has its issues).

Using the Tidal app with my T2 as a Tidal Connect endpoint is a huge advance over the Lumin app. I have hopes that Quboz will follow up with a similar tech as I prefer their content.