Guide

Install

Download r3proii.upt for the R3 Pro II or r1.upt for the R1 from the download page.

1. Charge the player above 30%.
2. Copy the file to the root of the microSD card and insert the card.
3. Start the update. From the stock firmware, use its update from microSD. From SonixOS, use Settings › System › Update firmware › From SD card.
4. The player shows "Upgrading...", then "Succeeded", and restarts.

First start

On the first start, SonixOS asks for the language, then for a Wi-Fi network to set the date, time and time zone. The Wi-Fi step can be skipped; the date and time are then set by hand.

The library is empty until the card is scanned: see Scanning the library.

Updating

Settings › System › Update firmware:

• Via internet: checks the latest release on GitHub, shows its version, size and changelog, then downloads and installs it.
• From SD card: installs the player's own file from the root of the card: r3proii.upt on the R3 Pro II, r1.upt on the R1.

Files on the card

Lyrics (.lrc, .txt) sit next to their track, with the same file name. A CUE sheet (.cue) sits next to the audio file named in its FILE line.

Scanning the library

Start a scan from Music › › Scan options › Scan music library, or with the Scan button on an empty Music page. Choose the folders to include; Audiobooks and Podcast are always excluded. Cancel stops the scan and keeps what was already read.

Scan options

Changes to the split and join options are applied when you leave the page: the library is reorganised without a new scan.

Browsing the library

The Music page holds All tracks, Albums, Artists, Album artists, Genres, Years, Favourites, Most played, Playlists and Browse. opens the Music settings, the search. The tiles can be reordered or hidden in Music settings › Library › Rearrange main page.

List buttons

• Sort: toggles A-Z and Z-A . On All tracks, Albums, Artists and Album artists it opens a menu: name and date added, plus year on All tracks and Albums.
• Play all: Play in random order, Play in sequence, Add a random track to the queue. Album lists also offer Play albums in random order when Play albums back to back is on.
• Disc: on an artist, switches between its tracks and its albums.
• Reverse: in Favourites, shows the most recent first.

Long lists show an A-Z bar on the side while scrolling; drag along it to jump to a letter.

Search

Results are split into Tracks, Albums and Artists. Hold a track for its menu.

Browse

The folders of the card as they are. A file plays its folder from that point. returns to the root, shuffles the current folder.

Cover Flow

Enable it in Music settings › Library › Cover Flow, then swipe up from the bottom edge of the Music page. Tap the centre cover to show its tracks; drag down to close.

Library options

Quality badges

Menus and selection

on a track: Add to or Remove from favourites, Add to queue, Add to playlist (Remove from playlist inside one), Show album, Details.

Hold a track, album or artist to start selection mode, then tap to add or remove rows. Actions:

• add to the queue, to favourites, to a playlist;
• remove from favourites (in Favourites), from the playlist (inside a playlist);
• on track lists, delete from the card, after confirmation (requires Allow deleting tracks);
• exit selection mode.

Playlists

• New playlist creates one. Tracks are added from the track menu, from selection mode or from Now Playing.
• reorders a playlist; drag the rows by .
• on a playlist: Rename, Delete, Backup. Backup writes an .m3u to Playlist/.
• imports .m3u and .m3u8 files from the root of the card, Playlist/ or playlist_data/. Moved tracks are matched again, and a report lists the result.

Playback

The repeat button cycles through off , repeat all , repeat one , shuffle and continuous shuffle , which reshuffles at every round.

Music settings › Playback options:

Now Playing

Swipe left on the main menu or a browsing page (library, Browse, Streaming, Radio, More) to open Now Playing; swipe right on the cover to close it. The star adds the track to favourites. Drag the progress bar to seek.

Layouts

Music settings › Now Playing › Player layout: Standard, Waveform (the seek bar shows the track's waveform; local files only) or Alternative (a centred cover over a full-screen blur).

On the same page: Cover colour uses the cover's main colour as the accent in the Standard and Alternative layouts (Waveform always does); Use track artist shows the track artist instead of the album artist; Show Now Playing at startup opens it on boot (requires Remember track).

Menu

: Queue, Add to playlist, Show album, Details, Settings.

Audiobooks and podcasts

Previous and next skip by 10, 30 or 60 seconds; the repeat button becomes the speed control , 0.5x to 2.0x. On an audiobook the menu holds Chapters, Add bookmark, Bookmarks and Summary; on a podcast the button opens the episode queue.

Queue and history

Open from Now Playing › › Queue. The page shows the playing track under Now playing, followed by the upcoming tracks. Tracks before the current one are not listed: what was played is in the history.

The history is hidden while selecting or reordering.

Lyrics

Swipe left on the cover to show the lyrics. Synced lyrics highlight the current line, and tapping a line seeks to it. The screen stays on while lyrics are shown.

Lyrics are read from a .lrc or .txt file with the track's name, or from the tags.

Downloading from LRCLIB

On a track without lyrics, swipe left on the cover and tap Search. SonixOS queries LRCLIB with the title and artist from the tags; if Wi-Fi is off, it offers to turn it on and searches once connected. Pick a result (Synced or Text only) and tap Apply: the lyrics are saved as a .lrc next to the track. searches again.

Equaliser

Sound settings are in the Music settings: on the Music page, or Settings in the Now Playing menu. Active effects are marked with a coloured arrow. The equaliser, PEQ and MSEB also apply to radio and streaming.

Music settings › Equaliser: ten bands from 31 Hz to 16 kHz, ±12 dB.

• : Default presets (Flat, Rock, Pop, Jazz, Classical, Dance, Bass, Treble, Vocal, Acoustic), Save preset, Load preset.
• resets all bands to 0 dB.

Parametric EQ and AutoEq

Music settings › PEQ: ten bands, a preamp from −15 to +6 dB and the resulting curve. When the curve would clip, the level is lowered automatically and the reduction is shown.

Tap the Gain or Q value to enter it on a keypad; − flips the sign.

Presets

saves and loads presets, stored as Equalizer APO .txt files in PEQ/. Files with more than ten filters or unsupported filter types are loaded without them, with a notice.

AutoEq

searches the AutoEq database by headphone name (requires Wi-Fi). The selected profile is downloaded, saved in PEQ/ and applied. refreshes the database.

MSEB and effects

DAC settings

Music settings:

DSD is sent to the DAC as DoP; over Bluetooth it is converted to PCM.

Volume and outputs

Tidal and Qobuz

Both are under Streaming and require Wi-Fi and a subscription.

searches tracks, albums and artists. adds or removes favourites and deletes your playlists. Quality and sign-out (Leave) are under .

Radio

Streaming › Radio: stations by Language, Country and Genre. MP3, AAC and FLAC streams can be played. Corner buttons: favourites , Recently played , My stations , search . Stations are added to favourites from Now Playing.

Quality badge

Stations in other formats, or with an unknown bitrate, have no badge.

My stations

radio.txt in the root of the card, one station per line as name, address. A line in square brackets starts a section; lines starting with # are ignored.

# My stations
[Rock]
My rock station, https://example.com/rock.mp3
[Jazz]
My jazz station, https://example.com/jazz.aac

Podcasts

Streaming › Podcasts: Followed, On the card and Trending. accepts a name or a feed address; follow from , up to 100 podcasts.

• Episodes are filtered by To hear, All and Heard. Resume listening continues the last unfinished episode.
• Episode menu: Mark as heard (or not heard), Play next, and Download or Delete from the card.
• Hold an episode to select several, then download or delete them together.
• Local podcasts go in Podcast/, one folder each; title, date and cover come from the tags.

Podcast settings

Last.fm

Sign in from Music settings › Last.fm › Account, then enable Scrobble to Last.fm. Plays made offline are queued and sent on the next connection; Waiting to be sent shows the count.

Audiobooks

Books go in Audiobooks/, in any subfolder. They are indexed separately from the music: the music scan skips this folder. Scan them from › Scan audiobooks.

Books

• Single file: an .m4b; an .mp3 with ID3 chapter marks; an .opus, .ogg or .flac with Vorbis chapter marks; or an audio file whose album tag no other file in its folder shares.
• Folder book: two or more files in one folder with the same album tag, one file per chapter, in name order. Files in CD 1, Disc 2 subfolders belong to the folder. Files with no album tag form one book.

Title, author and series are read from the tags. Where the tags have none, the folders are used: Audiobooks/Author/Series/.

Views

Tap a book to resume it. The position is saved per book; in a folder book, together with the file. A book is finished when playback reaches its last 45 seconds: it moves to Finished and its position returns to the start. In a folder book, only the end of the last file counts.

Chapters, bookmarks and speed

In Now Playing, opens Chapters, Add bookmark, Bookmarks and Summary (from the tags). In a folder book, Chapters lists its files. Up to 64 bookmarks per book. In the bookmark list, tap a bookmark to play from it, hold it to delete it.

sets the speed from 0.5x to 2.0x, without pitch change. One speed applies to all audiobooks; podcasts have their own.

Audiobook options

E-books

EPUB 2 and 3 files in Ebook/, opened from More › Books. Vertical Japanese text is rendered vertically.

Reader menu: Chapters; Text (size, line spacing, margins, word spacing); Look (theme Paper, Sepia or Night; page turn Instant, Slide or Vertical); Close the book.

On the shelf, lists bookmarks and configures the reading bar: chapter, progress (book or chapter), page, battery, clock.

Game Boy

ROMs in Games/GB and Games/GBC, opened from More › Gearboy and listed by title.

• D-pad with diagonals on the left, A and B on the right. Select and Start: a button row on the R1, the bottom corners of the game picture on the R3 Pro II.
• Press the centre of the game screen for Create save state, Load save state, Settings, Quit the game.
• : palette, shader, GBC colour correction, Show boot ROM at startup (requires dmg_boot.bin and cgb_boot.bin in Games/Bios).

Metronome, files and more

Metronome

More › Metronome: 30 to 250 BPM via −/+, slider or tap tempo; time signatures 1/4, 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 6/8, 7/8; accent on the first beat. Not available while audio is playing.

File manager

More › File manager: the whole card, hidden files included. Images and text files open in place. : Rename, Move to, Copy to, Delete. creates a folder.

Flappy Bird

More › Flappy Bird. Sound can be muted from the title screen.

Wi-Fi

Wireless › Wi-Fi. Hold the current network for Details (IP, MAC, signal, security), Disconnect and Forget network; hold a saved network to connect or forget it. rescans.

Bluetooth

Wireless › Bluetooth. searches for devices in pairing mode; new devices appear under Other devices, known ones under Paired devices. : Connect or Disconnect, Rename, Forget.

Bluetooth audio

• Change name: the name shown to other devices.
• Codecs: codecs supported by the connected device. The best one is selected on each connection; another can be chosen for the current connection.
• Synchronised volume: links the player and headphone volume.

Codec colours

The Bluetooth icon in the status bar takes the colour of the codec in use.

Bluetooth receiver

turns the player into a Bluetooth sink for a phone or computer. The incoming codec and sample rate are shown; changes the codec. Bluetooth headphones or speakers connected to the player must be disconnected first.

AirPlay, DLNA and transfer

On the Wireless page, all require Wi-Fi. AirPlay and DLNA stay on in the background; Transfer stays on only while its page is open.

USB storage: connected by cable to a computer or phone, the card is shared as a drive. Wi-Fi is not needed. With Detect changes on, the library updates when it is unplugged.

SonixLink

Android app (7.0 or later) to browse the player's library and control playback. Download the APK.

• Wi-Fi: enable Wireless › SonixLink with the player and the phone on the same network. The app finds the player automatically.
• Bluetooth: enable Bluetooth and SonixLink on the player, pair it from the phone's Bluetooth settings, then use Connect over Bluetooth in the app.

On first connection the app downloads the library index; this is not possible while the player is scanning. Refresh the index reloads it after the library changes. The SonixLink icon in the status bar shows an active connection.

• Tracks, Albums, Artists, Album artists, Playlists, Favourites and Folders, plus search.
• Playing from a list makes that list the queue; offers the same options as on the player.
• Transport controls, playback mode, favourite, volume and the full queue.
• Selection mode with the same actions as on the player.
• The phone's volume keys control the player.
• Media notification with cover and controls, also on the lock screen.
• The app uses the player's accent colour.

Control centre

Drag down from the status bar to open; drag up anywhere on it to close. It contains brightness, the playing track with its controls, and up to 16 toggles; with more than 8, drag the handle under the brightness slider to expand. Tap a toggle to switch it, hold it to open its page.

Toggles are chosen and ordered in Settings › More › Control centre by dragging between In use and Not in use.

Keyboard

Layouts

Settings › More › Keyboard layout. Drag layouts by into In use; the first one is the default. Available: English, Italiano, Deutsch, Español, Français, Русский, Nederlands, Polski, Português, Čeština. The initial layout follows the system language.

With more than one layout in use, hold 123 to switch layout while typing; the choice lasts until the page is closed.

Type

Settings › More › Keyboard type: QWERTY (full keyboard) or T9 (phone keypad with multi-tap). Applies to all layouts.

Input

Buttons and remotes

Settings › More › Remap buttons assigns Play/Pause, Previous track, Next track, Volume up, Volume down or Nothing to each hardware button. The power button is fixed. On the R1, Double click adds a second action on a double press.

In-line remote

Settings › More › In-line remote. One click play/pause, two clicks next, three clicks previous. USB-C headsets with buttons work the same way without this setting.

Appearance

Settings › Appearance:

Screen and screensaver

Settings › Screen:

Screensaver pictures: baseline JPEG, portrait, at most 480 x 720 (R3 Pro II) or 480 x 800 (R1).

Power and battery

Settings › Power:

With the player off and the charger connected, the battery level is shown; press power to show it again, hold to boot. A warning appears at 5%; at 1% the player shuts down after a 10-second countdown, also from standby.

Date, time and language

Settings › Date and time: Automatic sets date, time and time zone over Wi-Fi; Manual sets them by hand, with time zone and Standard time or Daylight saving. 24-hour clock switches between 24-hour and AM/PM.

Settings › Language: English, Italiano, Deutsch, Español, Français, Nederlands, Polski, Português BR, Čeština, Русский, 简体中文, 日本語. Korean, Thai and Arabic titles are displayed in every language.

About and developer options

• About (Settings › System › About): device, DAC, serial number, card usage, version.
• Factory reset: clears settings, Wi-Fi networks and Bluetooth pairings. Files on the card are not affected.

Tap Build number five times to enable Developer options at the bottom of Settings: ADB, Log to microSD, database and Bluetooth logs, and Processes (memory use and running processes).

Reporting a bug

A bug is a feature that SonixOS has but that does not work as it should. If SonixOS does not do something at all, that is not a bug: it has not been made yet, and it is a feature request. This is true even if the stock HiBy firmware does it.

Everything SonixOS can do is in the feature list. If what you expected is not there, do not open a bug report. Bug reports about missing features are closed.

Bug or feature request

Before you report

• What you are reporting is in the feature list, and it does not work as described there.
• You are using the latest version of SonixOS, and the problem is still there.
• The problem is not already in the open and closed issues.
• The log is attached. Without it, a problem cannot be looked into.

One problem per report, written in English.

Getting the log

Logs are written to the hidden .local folder of the card: Cmd + Shift + . shows it in the Finder; on Windows enable Hidden items.

1. Enable Developer options: tap Build number five times in Settings › System › About.
2. In Settings › Developer options, turn on the log for the problem (see the table).
3. Reproduce the problem.
4. Attach the log file to a bug report on GitHub.

Requesting a feature

A feature request is for something SonixOS does not do yet, or for a change to how an existing feature works. If a feature in the feature list does not work as it should, that is a bug.

• SonixOS is made in free time, with the help of people who contribute voluntarily. A request is not a promise, and there is no date for it.
• Some things cannot be done on this hardware.
• Requests that are already open, or that only ask for everything the stock firmware has, are closed.

Check the feature list and the open and closed issues first. One feature per request, written in English: open a feature request on GitHub.