Dialog dies frequently? Update to DOS2?

[justin_0]

Hi all,

Long term stalker of these forums, but I finally had a question... and I need some advice.  I have three Phantom Premier Classic (The all white ones) speakers across my apartment (two in a stereo pair in the living room and one in the kitchen), a Dialog unit, and the older remote.  I almost exclusively interact with the setup by using AirPlay to the Dialog from my phone or iPad.  The Phantoms are all connected using PLC and are all old enough that they do not have AirPlay included. 

Recently the Dialog unit has started to die (for lack of a better word) randomly killing my setup.  Weirdly, just unplugging it and plugging it back in fixes this without any need to setup everything again.  I've setup a smart power switch that I can use to do that remotely from my phone, but it's kind of annoying.

I was looking at the reviews of the new Devialet app from the app store... and they're pretty dismal with people talking about dead Phantoms, etc.  That has me slightly worried and the documentation for DOS2 seems slightly vague. So I have a few questions.  

The fact that a power cycle restores things makes me think that this might be a software issue.  Is there a more permanent way to reset the Dialog or reinstall the firmware?  (The three click method hasn't resolved this issue.)

If I upgrade, can I still use my Dialog to connect via AirPlay?  Would I have any way of using AirPlay since none of my Phantoms have it?

And lastly, should I worry about all of the bad reviews I'm seeing about DOS2 bricking phantoms?

Thanks for the input!  
Justin

[alandbush]

Hi all,

Long term stalker of these forums, but I finally had a question... and I need some advice.  I have three Phantom Premier Classic (The all white ones) speakers across my apartment (two in a stereo pair in the living room and one in the kitchen), a Dialog unit, and the older remote.  I almost exclusively interact with the setup by using AirPlay to the Dialog from my phone or iPad.  The Phantoms are all connected using PLC and are all old enough that they do not have AirPlay included. 

Recently the Dialog unit has started to die (for lack of a better word) randomly killing my setup.  Weirdly, just unplugging it and plugging it back in fixes this without any need to setup everything again.  I've setup a smart power switch that I can use to do that remotely from my phone, but it's kind of annoying.

I was looking at the reviews of the new Devialet app from the app store... and they're pretty dismal with people talking about dead Phantoms, etc.  That has me slightly worried and the documentation for DOS2 seems slightly vague. So I have a few questions.  

The fact that a power cycle restores things makes me think that this might be a software issue.  Is there a more permanent way to reset the Dialog or reinstall the firmware?  (The three click method hasn't resolved this issue.)

If I upgrade, can I still use my Dialog to connect via AirPlay?  Would I have any way of using AirPlay since none of my Phantoms have it?

And lastly, should I worry about all of the bad reviews I'm seeing about DOS2 bricking phantoms?

Thanks for the input!  
Justin

I recommend that you first visit this DOS2 migration Q&A page to determine if all your Classic Phantoms can be migrated. All your other questions may then become moot.

[justin_0]

Hi all,

Long term stalker of these forums, but I finally had a question... and I need some advice.  I have three Phantom Premier Classic (The all white ones) speakers across my apartment (two in a stereo pair in the living room and one in the kitchen), a Dialog unit, and the older remote.  I almost exclusively interact with the setup by using AirPlay to the Dialog from my phone or iPad.  The Phantoms are all connected using PLC and are all old enough that they do not have AirPlay included. 

Recently the Dialog unit has started to die (for lack of a better word) randomly killing my setup.  Weirdly, just unplugging it and plugging it back in fixes this without any need to setup everything again.  I've setup a smart power switch that I can use to do that remotely from my phone, but it's kind of annoying.

I was looking at the reviews of the new Devialet app from the app store... and they're pretty dismal with people talking about dead Phantoms, etc.  That has me slightly worried and the documentation for DOS2 seems slightly vague. So I have a few questions.  

The fact that a power cycle restores things makes me think that this might be a software issue.  Is there a more permanent way to reset the Dialog or reinstall the firmware?  (The three click method hasn't resolved this issue.)

If I upgrade, can I still use my Dialog to connect via AirPlay?  Would I have any way of using AirPlay since none of my Phantoms have it?

And lastly, should I worry about all of the bad reviews I'm seeing about DOS2 bricking phantoms?

Thanks for the input!  
Justin

I recommend that you first visit this DOS2 migration Q&A page to determine if all your Classic Phantoms can be migrated.  All your other questions may then become moot.

I did visit that page and my Phantoms are DOS2 capable.  They're not the more recent models that included AirPlay, but they are all Bluetooth capable.  (It seems like there was a model that predated that which ran the Zigbee protocol, I do not have any of those.)

[alandbush]

Personally, I have not migrated and so cannot offer any advice through experience.

If the failing Dialog is the prompt for your decision, is it worth buying another as backup?
There may be forumites still harbouring a redundant unit.

Or perhaps reaching out to Customer Care about your dilemma may prompt an offer of help to buy one of the many units returned to Devialet.

I wish you well making this difficult call.

[justin_0]

Personally, I have not migrated and so cannot offer any advice through experience.

If the failing Dialog is the prompt for your decision, is it worth buying another as backup?
There may be forumites still harbouring a redundant unit.

Or perhaps reaching out to Customer Care about your dilemma may prompt an offer of help to buy one of the many units returned to Devialet.

I wish you well making this difficult call.

Definitely.  The number of times I've seen people mention holding off on upgrading is giving me a lot of pause especially when this setup has worked so well for so long.  I do like the look of the new remote, which I believe requires DOS2...but that's not worth risking the speakers or my ability to interact with them as I'm used.

Good call.  I will contact Devialet to see if they still have any AirPlay Dialog units that they could sell me or if there's a more thorough reset protocol.  Thanks for the input!

[Snoopy8]

Quite a number of people here will have a spare & unused Dialog after a DOS2 upgrade. If you let people know what country you are in, you should get some offers.

[ragwo]

I updated 2x Gold, 3x Silver and a Dialog a couple of days ago and, knock on wood, they've been stable without hiccups so far. I've been really hesitant about upgrading to DOS2 after reading about all the instability issues but curiosity won me over. The new app is more responsive with better GUI, the connection between the speakers seems stable and the optical inputs are working as they should. The web UI is a treat and the optical direct mode is easily accessible. If you feel courageous you can upgrade, I'm happy so far.

[vaguedetails]

I’ve been on DOS2 since it came out. My classics, like yours, rely on the Dialog for Airplay given their vintage. The phantom run in stereo in the Living room connected through PLC, and the dialog lives in the basement directly connected to Ethernet at the switch. Whenever there’s a DOS2 update on the phantoms the dialog gets a similarly numbered update. I flit back and forth between a RPi with optical hat running roon RAAT directly into one of the optical ports, and Airplay for various sources, and so the new gen 2 remote can track forward and back.

Although there were initial pains with the first version or two of DOS2, I haven’t had any issues that would trigger regret. Because I use Roon pretty exclusively, I didn’t care about the lack of direct streaming service integration that spark provided, and didn’t bother experimenting with UPnP.

I say go for it.

[justin_0]

Thanks for the replies!

That's good to hear that people are having good luck with DOS2.  I think I'm going to see how annoying / long lived my solution of using a smart power outlet with a Siri shortcut -  "Hey Siri Fix it!"  - to power cycle the Dialog holds up.  I had also considered upgrading to DOS2 and then using another vintage piece of tech (Apple Airport Express) to handle the output Phone > AirPlay  (To Airport Express) > Optical out > Phantom.  That would only be in the worst case scenario where my Dialog is really dead/dying...

I'm in the States which is partly why I'm currently obsessing about my indoor technology ... Happy Thanksgiving!

I did email Devialet.  They provided the below guidance to do a factory reset in case someone else has similar issues.  I tried this and have gone about 48 hours since my last required reboot of the dialog, which is a marked improvement. 

2. Is there some other way to do a factory reset of that unit?
    the process to reset your Dialog to factory mode : 

- The Dialog is not plugged to the socket(Just Unplug the power cable from the power socket)
- Plug it 7 seconds
- Unplug it for 3 seconds
- Plug it 7 seconds
- Unplug it for 3 seconds
- Plug it 7 seconds
- Unplug it for 3 seconds
- Plug the Dialog and stand by
( - reset to the factory the Dialog (3 clicks should be followed by a pink LED, then rebooting: white blinking LED, then booted: white solid LED)


Justin