Serento: The audiophile UPnP controller app for iOS/macOS

[serento]

Hi lyapounov.

I'm sorry you are having so much trouble with Serento. Let me be clear on a point: I did not develop Serento to be a folder browser. Serento syncs with your server to enable a superior experience by offering greater organisational options like bookmarks, tags, playlists, instant syncing across devices and so on. This is not possible with folder browsing. If folder browsing is your main way of exploring your server then you should stick with Lumin or mConnect, or whatever app you enjoy. Serento is not for that and I never claimed it is.

Regarding the rest of the issues, Serento displays the album artwork placed in a folder just fine. I do not know why its not displaying in your case. Without a look at your logs it's difficult to say. But any combination of cover, folder, jpeg, jpg or png is displayed as the folder image.

Also, please understand that Serento is at version 1.0. No application was perfect at 1.0. All my competitors have years on the market, enough time to iron out most of the bugs. Serento will get there, in time, but faster than others, that's a promise.

[Donuk]

Hi Serento, I take your point that Serento is only at version 1.0, and from the discussion above it is clear that it still has some way to go before it is really fit for purpose.

But I will never experience this because I installed Serento shortly after you issued it here. And now my installation has expired, so when you make adjustments I will not see them.

I also feel that I will be happiest staying with Lumin rather than do a speculative purchase of an expensive product that still has some way to go.

Again, good luck, but not for me. Donuk

[serento]

Hi Donuk,

When you feel like testing Serento again (watch my updates here) send me a private message and I'll start over your trial.

[serento]

Hello everyone.

I'm happy to announce that version 1.0.4 is live on the App Store. I've been working really hard to fix all the bugs after the initial release. I've incorporated some of your feedback. This update should make Serento feel more mature and ready, even though I missed one thing in folder browsing for which I already submitted a bug fix. So expect 1.0.5 soon.

Bellow is the change log. I hope you enjoy the new version and if you like it please leave a rating and/or a review in the App Store. It helps a lot. Thanks!

Change log

Version 1.0.4 is the largest update since launch: two new ways to work with your library, PDF booklets, classical music in search, and a long list of playback and sync fixes.

NEW

Multi-select. Press and hold any album, track, artist, playlist, station or classical item to start selecting, then act on the whole set at once: play, queue, add to a playlist, tag, download or remove. It works on every list and grid in the app, on iPhone, iPad and Mac.

Playlists you can reorder. Drag tracks into the order you want and they stay that way, synced across your devices. The same drag works on bookmarks.

Booklets. An album that ships a PDF booklet now shows it, and an album with more than one shows them all. Text inside a booklet can be selected and copied. n order to be picked up, your pdf files need to have the one the following names: booklet.pdf, booklet2.pdf, booklet3.pdf, booklet4.pdf, booklet5.pdf, folder.pdf, <exact name of the album>.pdf.

Classical music in search. Searching now returns composers, conductors, orchestras, soloists and works alongside albums, artists, tracks and stations, each with its own filter tab and its own View All screen.

Artwork you can enlarge. Tap an album or artist image to open it at full size on a dark layer.

Volume control. Renderers that support it gain volume buttons and a maximum volume limit, so a mis-tap cannot send full scale to your amplifier.

Per-track artwork on compilations. A compilation now shows each track's own cover where the file carries one, instead of repeating the album cover down the whole list.

A new app icon.

IMPROVED

Folder browsing now understands hybrid libraries, where one level holds sub-folders next to folders that are already albums. Folders sort ahead of albums, alphabetically with numbers first, and the name it sorts on is the name you actually see on the row.

The genre taxonomy is considerably larger, so far fewer albums fall into a catch-all.

Haptic feedback on every control that acts on your library.

Swipe actions and drag to reorder now follow the system's current list editing behaviour, and the toolbars above those lists match it.

FIXED

Audio: the noise heard when pressing next or play on a DSD file, and on anything above CD quality. PCM stuttering on next, previous and seek. Pause, play and seek no longer fight each other, and pressing play on an album plays that album.

Radio: stations start reliably again, including when another app is already producing audio, and Bluetooth resumes correctly after an interruption.

Sync: resume, cancel and re-sync behave as expected, Plex sync issues are resolved, and several servers now share one folder view correctly.

Home no longer flashes an empty state while it is still loading.

Downloads: the missing tab is back, the buttons have a row of their own, and the retry button renders correctly with Display Zoom.

Classical bookmarks open the screen they point at. The format badge no longer claims bit-perfect while nothing is playing. Tapping the mini player while Now Playing is already open now does nothing, as it should.

The alphabetical index bar, the tag breadcrumb and the horizontal shelves all scroll and land where you expect them to.

Many bug fixes and other small improvements.


Cheers!

[Peter StreamMagic]

first results extended trial:

Serento still displays linn as UPnP AV
   

Serento does now see 70 genres in my library, non of them is displayed.
   
   
   

Serento clearly doesn't seek in my indexArtist folder.
    Bert Hart as displayed by Serento.
    Beth Hart indexArtwork folder.

Serento doesn't support MinmServer intelligent browsing?
Lumin gives the user a choice (folder) is this possible to implement in Serento?

Solved:

Now playing screen on small iPhone now displays correctly
de Dijk and Derek and the Dominos issue has been solved.

Positive:

The looks
The search function works perfect and fast

[serento]

Hi Peter.

Thanks for detailed report. It helps a lot.

Regarding the issues you mentioned:

1. The name you see there is the one that the streamer sends to the app. So it's just a name, it does not mean it does not see it's OpenHome capabilities. You can change the name to whatever you want. In the Audio Output sheet in the now playing screen or in the settings you can see if the streamer supports OpenHome or not.

2. I will look into the issue with the genres. Out of hundreds of users Serento has you are the only one with this genre issue. There must be something very specific with your setup. I will try to get to the bottom of this.

3. You are right, Serento does not use indexArtwork because of a very practical reason: 99% of users do not have artist images. But, I will add support for indexArtwork in the next version. Currently, artist images are downloaded from the internet.

4. Serento does not support intelligent browsing. I will look into it, but I'm not promising anything.

[Peter StreamMagic]

Hi Serento,

The name you see there is the one that the streamer sends to the app. So it's just a name, it does not mean it does not see it's OpenHome capabilities. You can change the name to whatever you want. In the Audio Output sheet in the now playing screen or in the settings you can see if the streamer supports OpenHome or not.

I can change the name, you are right, but Serento automatically changed the original name "woonkamer" (living room) into Linn woonkamer UPnP AV.
In the now playing screen it is displayed as Linn woonkamer DLNA .
The Linn rendered can act as both UPnP AV and OpenHome so I think Serento sees it as UPnP AV because Serento isn't fully OpenHome compatible. ( It doesn't read the playlist stored in the renderer)


I will look into the issue with the genres. Out of hundreds of users Serento has you are the only one with this genre issue. There must be something very specific with your setup. I will try to get to the bottom of this.

Strange, I have been using this setup since 2012 with a with a variety of apps and renderers, genre has always showed up.
There is nothing specific with my setup.

You are right, Serento does not use indexArtwork because of a very practical reason: 99% of users do not have artist images. But, I will add support for indexArtwork in the next version. Currently, artist images are downloaded from the internet.

Sounds good.
Some MinimServer users have spent lots of time creating a indexArtwork folder to add images as they like the most.
It is a petty when these images are overruled by an automated, non controlled, download proces from the internet.

Serento does not support intelligent browsing. I will look into it, but I'm not promising anything.

I know there are some folder browsing users amongst the MinimServer community, but a lot of users use MinimServer for its intelligent browsing capability.
I think that a app builder that recomands a specific server to use with his app at least should respect / support this design philosophy.

Good luck with the further development of your app; you still have a long way to go before you can call it the "best".

[simbun]

I'm flying blind here as I don't have a iOS device to test with, as such I'm having to make assumptions.

(13-09-2026 14:22)Peter StreamMagic Wrote:  Strange, I have been using this setup since 2012 with a with a variety of apps and renderers, genre has always showed up.
There is nothing specific with my setup.

Have you customised the genre display using:

Code:

tagFormat: genre.displayFormat={}

Serento links genres to albums through the track metadata (as provided by MinimServer) so genre at the track level (likely displayed on the album screen) must match the label from the genre index.

(13-09-2026 14:22)Peter StreamMagic Wrote:  Sounds good.
Some MinimServer users have spent lots of time creating a indexArtwork folder to add images as they like the most.
It is a petty when these images are overruled by an automated, non controlled, download proces from the internet.

Serento doesn't have access to the indexArtwork folder on the filesystem just the metadata as served by MinimServer, which for each object (artist/album/track/folder) includes an associated image.

(13-09-2026 14:22)Peter StreamMagic Wrote:  I know there are some folder browsing users amongst the MinimServer community, but a lot of users use MinimServer for its intelligent browsing capability.

Going down that route turns Serento into a "dumb" UPnP control point which I don't believe is the vision, though likely what most people want - albeit at a much reduced price.

[serento]

Hi Peter.

I think you have very different use cases than what I designed Serento for.

You seem to want to use folder browsing while I specifically designed Serento to not rely on folder browsing because it is my opinion that browsing folders is an inferior experience. I will not focus on folder browsing more than I already did. My effort is going to go towards other user experiences which I consider far more valuable.

If Serento does not meet your needs, it's not a big issue. Just keep using what you are happy with. I know I can't fulfil everybody's needs.

Serento is 100% OpenHome compatible. I use it everyday with OpenHome streamers like Lumin and Rockna. Many beta testers used it for months on end with Lumin, Linn and Esoteric, streamers that support OpenHome and have not reported any issues.

Serento isn't a MinimServer controller. It's an UPnP controller. That means it does not need to support every MinimServer feature, but I will do my best if I consider it adds value.

By the way, if you open the Audio Output sheet you can see the OH label right next to the name of the streamer. If you see DLNA that means it has failed to validate the OpenHome readiness of your streamer. Than can happen in some cases. I cannot say for sure why your streamer refuses to broadcast it's capabilities to Serento, unless I have a look at the log files.

[Peter StreamMagic]

Simbun hit the nail, it was tagFormat: genre.displayFormat={} setting that was preventing Serento to display genres.
Serento now displays genres and some sub-genres, not following the MinimServer rules, but usable.
I realize that Serento isn't the most suitable app for me.
That doesn't mean I'm unwilling to test it and offer an opinion on how I, as a user, would prefer it to work.
Like many other apps, I won't be using Serento ,nor can I use it, because I also use my Linn streamer to play vinyl records and TV audio.
There are only three apps (as far as I know..) capable of switching inputs: the two Linn apps and Lumin.
I’ve been using Qobuz streaming for years, which isn't supported by Serento yet either.
However, if a well-functioning, cheaper 'light' version were to be released,as Simbun suggested, I would consider giving Serento a try, the app has many good qualities, not at least its modern look (Kazoo is starting to feel very dated).
Incidentally, I rarely use folder browsing; I make use of MinimServer intelligent browsing, all my files are tagged. I think there was a misunderstanding regarding how MinimServer folders are handled within the Lumin app.
Can Serento really be considered 100% OpenHome compatible if it cannot display the playlist stored on the renderer?

Succes with further development,

Peter