Sonos Music Library on Move via Bluetooth

It’s semantics, but you’re music library isn’t specifically Sonos.  Sonos is just reading the files on your home computer/NAS.  Also, if you have no WiFi in the garden, you won’t have access to airplay, since airplay uses  WiFi.

As far as addressing the problem, I would look into the feasibility of expanding your routers WiFi coverage to the garden area.  Yes, that may cost more money, but may give you a lot of benefits beyond just using Sonos Move over WiFi in the garden.

If course, that doesn’t do anything for your airpods or when you are away from home and can’t use home WiFi.  For that I would consider getting Plex music service.  With this, you essentially can access your home music (as well as movies and other siimilar media) through the Plex app to play anywhere, including Sonos.  You will not need to worry about syncing files between your phone and home network.  That said, I don’t have an iPhone and can’t say how well Plex works on iPhones or whether file type is an issue.

Melvimbie and Buzz,

Thank you both for your replies.  Frankly, I would really like to avoid tinkering with my wifi network, if at all possible.  I currently have a 5 node Linksys Velop mesh and that in conjunction with the Move does not make for an easy life.  In fact, had I known the problems of running a Move in a less than perfect wifi setup, I doubt I would have bought it.

However, I won’t dwell on that, since I am where I am.  Regardless of the difficulties with the current wifi setup, I don’t really need/want wifi access at the far end of the garden (except perhaps to run Sonos), especially when that still wouldn’t give AirPod access.  In that context, I am definitely able to play a subset of my music library direct from the iPhone to the Move without wifi - isn’t the link between the 2 Bluetooth as opposed to wifi? - and all I want to do is extend the range to include the .wma files in the library.

Thanks for the tip about Plex.  I had never heard of it and am now trying to get my head round it.  It seems to be mainly targeted at video streaming, so am having a bit of difficulty getting to grips with the music side.  I use a relatively low-end Synology NAS (DS218) and Plex cautions against using a NAS with insufficient cpu power, so that may not be an answer.

I have also recently come across a product called dBpoweramp, which claims to convert the album art along with the music files and offers a “batch” conversion option.  Before I download it and give to a try, has anybody heard of and/or got any hands-on experience with this product? 

Unfortunately, as I just discovered, dBpoweramp doesn’t support .wma files on a Mac.  it’s a Windows only feature!

Thanks for your insightful comment.  Is that how you got to generate 17,797 replies.  Maybe you could find something better to do with your time. 

Full disclosure: I’m not a Mac person.

Since this is likely a once and done project, perhaps you have a friend with a PC that could help out with this chore. Depending on the number of files this could take a while to complete. 

The Sonos library is NOT a set of files and directories.  Also the Sonos app is not a music player, it is a remote control for the Sonos networked system.  The Sonos Music Library consists of the indexed filepaths to all the files wherever they are stored on the local network.  The filepaths are stored on each speaker, not in the app.  To play a track from your music library on a particular speaker, the Sonos app instructs the speaker to find the track from the stated location on the network and play it.  This is an integrated coherent system in which app, speaker and file store work together across the network.

When you play non-networked over BT, you are not using the Sonos system at all.  The Sonos app is irrelevant and you just have a dumb BT speaker to which you would play as you would to any other dumb BT speaker.  The Sonos Music Library only exists as a concept within the networked system.

You need to find a means to play your music files from wherever they are stored by BT to your dumb, Sonos-branded speaker.  How the Sonos Music Library is defined in the Sonos system is as irrelevant as if you were playing to a Bose BT speaker.

i hope that makes sense and is helpful.  If it doesn’t and isn’t, I’m afraid it is the best I can do.

@bjw10,
It’s been mentioned already, but one of the ways I have found to achieve this when travelling, is to connect a mobile device, like an iPhone (with a mobile data connection) over Bluetooth to a Sonos Move or Roam and then play from the Plex App. That’s after setting up remote access to the local NAS or PC music library with the free Plex server software.

It’s usually a simple case of forwarding port 32400 on the local router to the Plex server (Note however, that it requires a Plex Pass (purchase) in order to get remote access).. it looks like this…

See example side by side screenshots from the Plex App whilst connected over Bluetooth - the mobile has no WiFi connection. All is streamed from the NAS Plex server back at Home via the mobile data connection to the speaker over Bluetooth.

@Ken_Griffiths 

Thanks for the further suggestion re Plex.  Since I have now resurrected the old Mac which runs Fusion, I am persevering with that option for now.  It runs iTunes (instead of Apple Music) and I thought that there was a way to use it to convert my .wma files to .m4a.  That isn’t going too well right now, but I haven’t explored this option fully yet.  Failing that I think I will try installing an XP version of dBpoweramp and leave Plex as the fall back position before giving up the idea entirely.

A key aim at the back of all this is to create a situation that can be easily understood by a non-technical person, namely my wife.  This whole environment is now so complex to her that she, unsurprisingly, freaks out when any sort of problem occurs and wants to go back to a radiogram and vinyls (not that we have one)!

I think the point that we’ve been trying to be make is that Sonos doesn’t do anything to do the data, the music files, sitting on your NAS. When you connect the directory(s) in the Sonos app, nothing is written or modified on your NAS.  Your  Sonos speakers just store an index file of your files for easier searching an access.  Many others who don’t understand this before, believing that Sonos has modified the files on their NAS, has also referred to it as their “Sonos Music Library”...as if the files can only be used by Sonos now.  I think you understand how it works, but the frequent reference to your files as specifically the Sonos Music Library as casting some doubt.

You are correct that it likely isn’t relevant to a solution to your issue, but we still would want to clear up confusion.  For example, if you went with Plex as a solution, we wouldn’t want you to think you’d have to create a second copy of all your music files, one for plex and one for Sonos, as if they can’t access the same files.

I personally am not a big fan of trying to keep two or more versions of music files in sync across multiple devices.  Every time you add a file, you’ll have to manually update to multiple places, or have some automation in place to handle it.  I like the idea of using a music service like plex that can read my sole source of music, including any playlists and metatags, without me having to worry about it.  Plex is what I know, but perhaps there is a similar music service that does the same job that better suits you?