Retired Sonos Staff

Sonos 11.1 Brings Sonos Radio

Related content:Software

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
April 21, 2020
181 replies
10409 views

We’re proud to announce the launch of Sonos Radio, the premier radio experience on Sonos. This is a free, ad-supported streaming radio service available to Sonos customers, offering access to an extensive assortment of music, news, live sports and more.

Sonos Radio connects you with radio stations from around the world, with over 60,000 broadcast radio stations brought together in an easy to use interface. You can also use Sonos Radio to access radio services from our partners, such as iHeartRadio in North America, with more on the way.

Sonos Radio features exclusive Sonos Stations, 30 genre-based stations based off of the music our owners listen to most. Get quick access to music with stations designed to complement the things you do at home, like getting ready in the morning, relaxing, working from home, cooking, and more.

Broadcasting from our Sonos Store in New York City, Sonos Sound System is the destination for music discovery and sonic inspiration. You can find Sound System along with our exclusive artist-curated stations under Sonos Presents in the app.

Learn more here: https://support.sonos.com/s/article/482

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T

typ993

Trending Lyricist I

I’m hoping that Sonos Radio will be more reliable than TuneIn. After numerous TuneIn outages, I’ve have to delete some local TuneIn stations and replace them with the direct stream URL.

To Sonos: are you still relying on TuneIn to supply connectivity for local stations?

Ryan SAuthor

Retired Sonos Staff

Does this stream at a higher bitrate than TuneIn?

When it comes to audio quality, there are two things you need to keep an eye on for streaming, bitrate and format. For example, a 256 kbps stream of mp3 audio generally doesn’t sound as good as a 128kbps AAC stream. With Sonos Radio, we balanced a codec and bitrate pairing that would sound as good as possible, while still respecting your bandwidth. Sonos Radio stations stream at 128kbps in AAC.

The bitrate for radio stations available in Sonos Radio from TuneIn or iHeart Radio will depend on the source of the station, who’s hosting it. A radio station stream generally comes from a partner that the station works with, and the quality could be anywhere from 64 kbps to 320 kbps, most cases having multiple streams at different qualities, and you’ll get served the one that’s best for your connection at the time you try to connect.

I’m hoping that Sonos Radio will be more reliable than TuneIn. After numerous TuneIn outages, I’ve have to delete some local TuneIn stations and replace them with the direct stream URL.

To Sonos: are you still relying on TuneIn to supply connectivity for local stations?

We’re still working with TuneIn, but we're also working with other partners and indexing our own streams. I believe you can also add direct URLs to Sonos Radio if needed.

Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.

W

wgdaquila

Contributor I

Does this stream at a higher bitrate than TuneIn?

When it comes to audio quality, there are two things you need to keep an eye on for streaming, bitrate and format. For example, a 256 kbps stream of mp3 audio generally doesn’t sound as good as a 128kbps AAC stream. With Sonos Radio, we balanced a codec and bitrate pairing that would sound as good as possible, while still respecting your bandwidth. Sonos Radio stations stream at 128kbps in AAC.

The bitrate for radio stations available in Sonos Radio from TuneIn or iHeart Radio will depend on the source of the station, who’s hosting it. A radio station stream generally comes from a partner that the station works with, and the quality could be anywhere from 64 kbps to 320 kbps, most cases having multiple streams at different qualities, and you’ll get served the one that’s best for your connection at the time you try to connect.

I’m hoping that Sonos Radio will be more reliable than TuneIn. After numerous TuneIn outages, I’ve have to delete some local TuneIn stations and replace them with the direct stream URL.

To Sonos: are you still relying on TuneIn to supply connectivity for local stations?

We’re still working with TuneIn, but we're also working with other partners and indexing our own streams. I believe you can also add direct URLs to Sonos Radio if needed.

Thank you, will you be streaming at a lossless rate when the new controller is released?

B

BigBadger

Contributor I

Why does Sonos Radio say "Unable to play...." for every single station?? Documentation is pretty much nonexistent

D

Dean_25

Avid Contributor I

Why no FOLK MUSIC station? (No, “Country” or “Outlaw” is NOT folk!) Folk always gets short shrift in these corporate-created music services. I’ll listen to FOLK ALLEY on TuneIn or IHeartRadio instead, sorry Sonos, Radio!

R

rminsk

Lyricist I

Is there a way for artists to submit music to your curators for consideration for programming on your stations?

I

ings

Enthusiast II

I’ve read the announcement and kicked the tires, but I still don’t understand how this is fundamentally different from the existing TuneIn support. Anyone understand the difference?
Ryan said above the default encoding rate was 128 Kbps AAC. In 2020 this is crazy - it should have been 256. For example, hasn’t 256 AAC been the Apple Music default for over five years now? Sonos is supposed to be a premium experience!

Dave Ings

S

Suecom

Lyricist III

The reason you have to create these data gouging services (so you can sell your customers data) when we already have a perfectly adequate solution TuniIn) is because we’re not buying your hardware because of your terrible privacy policy.

i spent $3000 on Sonos 5 years ago (before any information was blackmailed from me) and was perfectly happy with the product. Over the years I would have doubled that investment but for your data collection habits. I now make it my cause to discourage anyone thinking of buying Sonos on account of the controversy around your privacy policy. So far I conservatively estimate I’ve ‘sold’ $5000 worth of Apple hardware in your place.

focus on making hardware and bin your data collection infrastructure and resources

Sjoop1985

I noticed for most stations here in the Netherlands, that they show TuneIn branded artwork on Sonos radio:

And show normal artwork when streamed on TuneIn:

So are the stations simply sourced from TuneIn? Will they eventually become “native”, streaming directly from the resource provided by the station itself?

The reason you have to create these data gouging services (so you can sell your customers data) when we already have a perfectly adequate solution TuniIn) is because we’re not buying your hardware because of your terrible privacy policy.

Wonderful contribution. So TuneIn does not mine data? You never use Google? Amazon? Facebook?
I already needed to register my system to an e-mail address when I first started Sonos in 2013 (7 years ago) and as far as I understand, Sonos has always gathered user data.

I understand the sentiment, somewhat, but if you don't want any of your data gathered, you should be living offline.

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans (John Lennon) --- Living room: Arc, Sub, 2x One - Kitchen: One - Bedroom: Play 3 - Office: Beam - Bathroom: Play 1

G

Grae

Lyricist I

Sonos Radio fails… no audio output on pressing play and player reverts to Stop mode

Branding suggests Sonos Radio us just Tune in rebranded.. what is the point? No new features..

Reverted to using Radioplayer which works everytime.

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