I received two Sonos One SL speakers today and have been immediately annoyed by this issue, while streaming a show from my laptop.

I was specifically attracted to Sonos because the company’s marketing material touted its compatibility with Airplay. Based on my experience, and those of others in this thread, that claim is half-true.

From the price and the company’s reputation, I had assumed that the UX would be really smooth - at any rate superior to that of the no-name bluetooth speakers from Aliexpress I previously owned (which cost a tenth of the price). Unfortunately, despite the good sound quality, the opposite is true.

Given that this has been discussed publicly for a couple of years, it’s clear that addressing this issue isn’t a priority. A product owner has presumably decided that the cost of doing so outweighs any loss in revenue that might occur from leaving the issue unfixed.

As such I’ll be returning the speakers. I suggest that any other prospective purchasers hoping to use Sonos with Airplay assume that they will encounter the issues described in this thread until the manufacturer demonstrates otherwise.

AirPlay UX is handled by Apple, not by Sonos. When AirPlay 2 in use, the Sonos speakers are merely receivers of data.

As a side note, Apple does not allow anything more than a stereo stream to be sent to a non-Apple device. If you want to send something that is of a higher codec, you must send that to an Apple TV, and have the Apple TV present it to the Sonos through the connection to the TV set. 

Appreciated, but in that case the proper action for Sonos is to ensure their marketing material contains no claim of Airplay compatibility. Or, perhaps more realistically, to accompany such claims with a description of the known limitations.

It’s incredibly frustrating that these expensive products have such terrible compatibility with Apple products.

I have a pair of Ikea SYMFONISK, and I have faced this issue since I got them years ago.

As a user, I don’t care if this was marketed or not as a computer speaker, as someone in this thread stated. AirPlay is a protocol, and it shouldn’t matter if I’m using a phone or a laptop.

For a speaker that ONLY supports AirPlay, there’s a good chance that people will, at some point, use a macOS to stream audio.

What is worse is that even after 4 years, the issue still exists, but Sonos doesn’t admit that there’s a problem and continues to sell the same way as 4 years ago.

Sonos speakers don’t ’ONLY’ support AirPlay 2, in fact, that’s the least of their myriad of capabilities. 

I use AirPlay 2 on a daily basis, from an iPad, an iPhone, and the MacOS to stream music, and audio from video that I’m playing, all without issue. 

There isn’t enough information in your post to hazard a guess as to what networking issue you’re experiencing, so I would recommend that you submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this problem, and call Sonos Support to discuss it.

There may be information included in the diagnostic that will help Sonos pinpoint the issue and help you find a solution.

When you speak directly to the phone folks, they have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your network and Sonos system.

same problem here… different sources… sonos software is GARBAGE

You’re using Apple AirPlay. Why would this only be on Sonos?