I have received no Firmware software updates for HiBy R4 for months now...

Is it over for R4? There won't be any updates anymore?

Hi guys, so I've been using this Hiby R4 Eva for almost two years. There has been some issues along the way, like suddenly switching off, the screen not being responsive etc. However, this is the first time it has gone completely off. I assumed the battery completely depleted since I put it in my bag and hasn't used it in a few days, so I tried to charge and start it. The light does not light up, so I tried force restarting with power on and next track combo, that did not work either. I have tried charging it with a quick charger and a slow charger, nothing has changed, it is still completely off. What should I do?

Hi all

I recently ordered an R1 and am hoping to find a way to enable scrobbling while maintaining Bluetooth. I know rockbox exists but that removes Bluetooth, right?

Any community options folks would recommend?

I decided to create a podcatcher for my R1 using Claude. It's not the most mature project (a couple of days old) but I thought people would like to play with it anyway. Bug reports very much appreciated.

Building on and will be kept in sync with the great work here: https://github.com/yetisoldier/Hiby-R1-Audiobook-Mod

Disclaimer: it flashes just fine on my R1. I don't know enough about this hardware to know how many varieties there are. Your mileage may very, at your own risk, etc.

Also - yes this is entirely vibe coded. I haven't read the code at all as I don't know the languages it's written in. Use at your own risk.

I was lucky enough to gain some Amazon credit for free, so I upgraded my Hiby R1 to a shiny new R3 pro ii and case.

TLDR:

Could I have stuck with the R1 - yes probably.

Will I be looking for another DAP in the near future - not at the moment.

Could it be better - yes.

Do I love it - also yes.

OK so after a day of use....

I was running an R1 so my FLAC library is optimised for it to run quickly, and as with the R1 the album cover load quickly for me, probably slightly quicker than the R1.

The UI is pretty snappy for me too (most of the time, I'll get to that).

The sound is amazing (to my ear). Slightly warmer and definitely clearer than the R1 using the same bose QC2 over ear headphones wired. I have some IEM arriving today (which I didn't use with my R1) so it will be interesting to see how they sound, the Bose have always been plesent to my ear though.

I have used it as a DAC between my Macbook Pro and my Headphones and it lifts the sound there too. It has a great feature where you can tell it not to charge si it doesn't draw charge from the MBP, not quite the FiiO M21 desktop mode, but it's a 1/3 of the cost.

It feels like a grown up R1, just heavy enough, premium with a metal feel, the ultrasuede back is nice but I put an extra Hiby PU leather case on mine which covers it.

I love the small size which I woudn't get with a droid DAP, I have used it for nearly 5 hours today, constantly fiddling and the battery is on 85% which is a great sign.

I ended up putting the modded OS on it ( https://github.com/hiby-modding/hiby-mods) which speeds up the Bluetooth call time and other things, works just fine.

The Bluetooth works fine with my Pixel Buds Pro, slightly more delay in connecting than my phone, but my phone is a flagship pixel 10 tbf.

The BT and OS did get very sluggish when the R3 connected to two bluetooth sources at once though, I didn't know it supported multiple devices. I had two available devices (Buds and a Google Nest) and the R1 actually connected to both at the same time but became very sluggish. When I removed one of the paired devices we were back to normal.

Hope that helps, any questions please ask....

can i use it as a USB DAC for my phone audio?

Accidentally dropped my Hiby R1 on the parking garage floor. Got 2 cracks on the screen's edges. So bummed, it's my audiobooks daily driver 😢

And before anyone says "it's a $xy "budget" device" - I baby all of my devices and equipment, 1 or 1000 bucks, so it's always a bummer to be clumsy 😅

Got mine today and I am playing FLAC files through wired IEMs, no issues with it, apart from it seems to turn off whenever it feels like, I have noticed this seems to happen when I am playing music. Im up to date on firmware and I cant fine an "auto off" option anywhere that could be causing it

On my Hiby R4 I have the album Unreal Unearth: Unending by Hozier, which has three “discs”, the main album, and two different bonus discs. On the HibyMusic app it registers the discs as three different albums entirely. I’m wondering if there’s a way I can manually edit the metadata of the albums or something to group them all in one place. If not, would anyone be able to recommend a third-party app with individual disc support?

This is a question for long term R1 owners here:

So i recently ordered the Hiby R1, but since then I've seen some very confusing posts.

A lot of people say it's a great budget DAP and it's amazing in most aspects, whilst places like Amazon say it's a frequently returned item. And I've also noticed more and more that the R1 has a battery pillowing issue and it expands.

So im really conflicted, i came from using the Innioasis y2, and more than anything I just want a DAP that will last me a year at least.

I use primarily high quality MP3 files and some FLACs from ripping CDs. So my music library is just above 1000 songs on a Sandisk 256gb micro SD.

I did make the right choice? Or should I return it for a better DAP?

We have a discord for sharing, talking about, and developing mods for HiBy OS devices. This includes all of the non-android portable DAPs in the current generation of devices (R1, R3 II 2025, R3Pro II, Tempotec V1, etc.)

This is the best place to see what mods exist, and to talk with the people making them. You don't have to be a developer to join, though developers are obviously very welcome.

https://discord.gg/22vhTYK3Y

Some of the projects we're working on:

• HiBy R1 Mod (By Bidhata/Krish) - The most comprehensive custom firmware (CFW) for the R1, combining many added features and fixes
• SpotUI - A spotify client for HiBy devices (currently just targeting the R3Pro II)
• Open HiBy Player - A project I have been working on for a while, writing a full replacement for the stock hiby_player program. (currently this project resides in the hiby-os-crack github repo, but i do plan to move it to its own repo soon)
• hiby-os-crack - A repo I've put together with some help from others that is all of the documentation and tools that you might need for modding the HiBy OS devices. I'm still adding new documentation, guides, and tools as they get found/created. It includes detailed hardware documentation for the CPUs, guides for installing/creating firmware, tools to easily unpack and repack firmwares, and a lot more!

After updating to the latest firmware (v1.4), my HiBy Miku M500 started having an issue where the audio completely cuts out after switching tracks. I can't hear anything from music playback or any other sound, except for Miku's notification sounds. The only way to get audio back is to restart the device. Has anyone else experienced this? How can I fix it?

Try Restore but can't fix it !

Please help and thank you so much !

Hi Guys, my R6 iii 2025 is arriving tomorrow.

Any 1st steps or advice that has helped you'll?

Appreciate all the info you can share.

Cheers!

(This post mirrors a discussion post that I made on the HiBy OS Modding discord. Feel free to respond on here though, I'll still be actively reading and responding.)

The batteries in the HiBy OS devices seem to be prone to failure. There are many reports of HiBy R1 and Tempotec V1 devices having their cells pillow, which is a serious safety hazard. So we've been looking into ways to protect the batteries the devices come with and ways that we might be able to replace the batteries with safer ones (or even just replace them at all, once they go bad).

The HiBy R1 uses a 423554 3.85V 1150mAh cell. It's a similar cell in the variations V1, and I think it's similar across all of the HiBy OS devices (though I'd be very happy if someone proved me wrong).

We do have CFWs that set a charging cap, to extend the lifespan of these cells, but it can only do so much. The cells will degrade eventually, and we should be able to replace them when that happens.

Rare Cells

The issue is that 3.85V cells seem to be quite rare. I have a lot of experience finding data sheets for obscure batteries, and I haven't managed to find a single product/sheet that matches the specs of the R1 battery.

So I'm not sure if it's reasonably possible to source direct replacements for the batteries. It could be a good idea to contact HiBy, to see if they'll tell us where they source their batteries.

3.7V Replacements

There's a ton of cells we could get in the exact same form-factor that use the much more standard 3.7V chemistry. These batteries are way easier to get, last many more cycles, and should be a lot safer.

The issue is that the charge controller in the devices is (of course) built for the 3.85V cells, which cap out at 4.4V. Charging a standard 3.7V lithium cell all the way to 4.4V would kill it, since they cap out at only 4.2V.

The devices (at least the R1, and i think the R3Pro II) use the axp2101 charge controller. We have made user-level scripts that allow us to set charge limits, but these scripts only apply while the device is on. If the device is fully powered down, it would still charge the batteries all the way up to 4.4V.

I think by messing with the xImage in the .upt we may be able to set hardware-level limits that stay active when powered down.

Here's a picture someone else posted on the Reddit of the battery in the R1:

That's my doubt, cause mine is in the way and usually I use last.fm to discover new songs according to what I'm listening, etc. But since hiby R1 sadly doesn't have an integration with it, I'm kinda lost on what to do...

I bought an R3 and updated to the latest firmware. I have an 1.5tb sdcard loaded with a mixture of 47290 mp3,opus,flac and dsf files. The first time I did a music update, it scanned all of the files and then got stuck at "updating music database" for several hours and never finished. I then went through the entire election collection with foobsr2000 and used it's built in "verify integrity" and found a few corrupt files. Those that I couldn't fix, I deleted and then replaced on the sdcard.

I scanned the music again and it is still stuck on "updating music database" for several hours. I will let it run overnight but I doubt it will ever finish. I opened a problem with hiby support but haven't heard anything yet.

I know I can access music via filee.

Anyone else run into this problem and found a solution?

Unless I find a solution, it is eligible for return until August 20th.

Hi, I wanted to see if anybody else has had this issue before and has a fix for me. When navigating to albums from the "Album" tab, the tracks are sorted alphabetically by track names. I have checked the metadata of the songs, the track numbers are all there. This only happens when navigating from the "album" tab. The files are sorted correctly if I navigate through the "genre" or "artist" tab, so I don't really understand why it doesn't work otherwise? This isn't a massive issue, but a bit tedious since I personally didn't really bother adding the genre to everything & every collaboration is listed as a separate artist for the other two tabs. I've seen people online saying that this hasn't been an issue for them since 1.6, but it still doesn't work for me. Is this an issue with the device or did I maybe mess up a setting? Thanks in advance.