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I use MX Player, PowerAmp, and VLC for various things.
And, on a side note, one of the best things about having a smartwatch is being able to control my phone's media players without taking out my phone.
I should look into that. I've been looking for a remote shutter. I listen to podcasts and audio books when I game, and even though my phone is right next to me I use a Bluetooth speaker because I can control the media without waking the phone screen.
what benefits do those third party media players give you?
WearOS has a built-in media control that you can configure to pop up automatically when the phone is playing music or video. There are also multiple apps that act as remote controls for the phone's camera. Mine also displays the camera view on the watch, which can be very handy.
The third-party media players often provide more detailed controls. They handle a broader range of formats (particularly VLC). And some of them perform better.
To be honest, though, the main reason I use third-party players is because I'm familiar with them. It's similar to the advantages of using a third-party launcher. You have a lot more control over when and how you upgrade your UI experience.
I use podcast addict in much the same way. I can control it using my WearOS watch or even just via the Bluetooth controls of my headphones. I use podcast addict mostly for podcasts (obviously), but I also have (a very manual and kludgey) RSS server at home to feed me and the rest of the home audiobooks via podcast addict. I've started to move that listening more to Plex via PlexAmp on my phone, which is also controllable from my watch. The Plex audiobook experience isn't perfect, but it is a lot easier to manage.
I haven't found a need or advantage to an external player yet. But, I have found some codecs that the Plex app has struggled with, which might benefit from an external app. I haven't had the issue in a while though and didn't think of using the external player then, so no guarantees.
okay so you have podcasts on your Plex server, and you can play them through your podcast app through the Plex app? or are they local files on your phone
No, I don't use the podcast feature on the Plex. But I do use Plex for listening to audiobooks. Just be aware that MP4/m4b cannot be in the same library as mp3s.
The other podcast thing is a solution totally outside of Plex. It is running on the same machine though and accessing the same files. dir2cast + webserver like Nginx or apache reads a directory of mp3 files and builds an RSS feed out of them. In some ways it works better than Plex because it's simpler on the user side to listen offline as long as you sync the feed at home. I tend to do a separate feed for each series or author. It's a bit fiddly to get setup and adding a new feed requires a bash one liner and editing some HTML after the files are sorted and named perfectly because podcast apps have some funny limitations when it comes to actually grouping, sorting, and displaying metadata.
what I do with my audiobooks is I access them from a desktop site on my phone, download them, and then play them with a third party audiobook app.