Nucube starts here

Nucube is a music player for files you own — on the desktop and on the phone, same library, playing on device or in the room.

Streaming apps made that kind of listening easy, and wrapped it in a rental: a monthly fee, a catalog you do not keep, clutter, limits. The usual path for owned files is heavier — a dedicated server, extra hardware, a vendor’s idea of how the library should be stored. We want the first experience with your music, without the second path. Nucube is a player. It points at files served over open protocols.

The simple path

Point at the files. Folders on disk. A NAS. SMB, NFS, DLNA. Open protocols, first-class. Nucube reads what is already there. There is no Nucube server. The files stay where they are.

Take the library with you. Build it on the desktop. Sync it to the phone — artists, albums, tracks. That is the catalog, not the audio. Download the albums you want onto the device so they play with the network gone.

Play on this device, or in the room. Sound from this computer or phone — or from one renderer in the room that speaks UPnP / OpenHome. Switch without rebuilding the library, without a brand you have to buy next. One output at a time; not multi-room.

That is the path. Everything else in the product is in service of it.

Principles we will keep

A short list. We do not intend to walk it back.

• We read the collection. We do not rewrite it. Tags and cover art enrich our library database, not your files. If you stop using Nucube tomorrow, the collection is unchanged.
• Open protocols over lock-in. Sources are files, shares, and DLNA. Room playback is UPnP / OpenHome — the open protocols we use to talk to network players and Hi-Fi. On-device playback is the computer or phone you are using.
• Album-first. Search returns what you own. No discover feed, no ads, no tracking.
• One place at a time. Play on this device, or send the music to one renderer in the room — the network player, the Hi-Fi, the speaker that already speaks UPnP / OpenHome. Not a house full of zones.

We are a small company. We take the work seriously. We try to be precise. The work is a player that treats a collection as a collection.

From here

This is where Nucube starts. We began in early 2026. Builds through 0.9 stayed private; 0.11 opens the open public beta — the first version we are putting in front of everyone. It is ready to live in, and it is not finished. We will keep growing it. What that release fixed is in 0.11 Release Cycle.

If you own the music and want a modern way to listen to it — at the desk, in the pocket, in the room — this is the player we are building.