Air Play on Windows 10

  • 2 March 2019
  • 6 replies
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I made a discovery today that will enhance my Sonos experience. I installed iTunes on my desktop computer running Windows 10. To my surprise, one of my Sonos players (Play5: 2nd generation) showed up in iTunes as an available Air Play resource. In short, I can direct iTunes running on my computer to a Sonos player which can then be grouped with my other players. I didn't know you could do that. I am now enjoying my iTunes library in "Party Mode" while using iTunes on my desktop computer to control what music I want to play. Also have it playing from my computer while simultaneously streaming to Sonos. Pretty cool!

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If you have an iOS device, like Apple TV, iPhone or iPad etc. you can also airplay to your Sonos speaker from the numerous Apps that now support Airplay too, like Spotify Free version, YouTube, Netflix, or Podcast Apps etc.

And if you have any other Sonos Speakers, you can group them together and play the AirPlay audio to more than one room, in perfect sync.

All very useful stuff eh..??
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The OP's point is that this is Airplay on Windows, which is indeed interesting news. (iOS support is a given). I might even consider installing iTunes just to try this out.
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Sure enough, it works on Windows! Who knew.
Sure enough, it works on Windows! Who knew.Just about every iTunes user, or so I thought. AirPlay has been in iTunes on all platforms for yonks! .. even before AirPlay-v2, came about last year, but obviously you could only play to a single device with v1. Now you can play to multiple AirPlay devices in sync. There were workarounds to multiplay with AirPlay v1, but only on iOS mobile devices using Apps like the WHAALE Player and it’s built in audio sync features.
Sure enough, it works on Windows! Who knew.
I knew. iTunes on Windows 10 is Airplay2-enabled.


AirPlay 2 system requirements

The following devices support streaming audio with AirPlay 2. If your device meets the requirements below, but you can't use AirPlay, learn what to do.

Devices you can stream from
iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iOS 11.4 or later
Apple TV 4K or Apple TV (4th generation) with tvOS 11.4 or later
HomePod with iOS 11.4 or later
Mac or PC with iTunes 12.8 or later

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208728
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I don't have any Apple products so I hadn't ever given AirPlay any thought. So I was surprised to see one of my players show up in iTunes on Windows 10. This capability may have been around forever, but I thought it worth reporting that the capability exists to use Windows-based iTunes as a streaming source to Sonos much like I've been using Spotify all along. I was correct in that this was new information to controlav.