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Sonos Radio HD - Will it work without Wifi?


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I take my Sonos Roam with me to work. I’d love to listen to Sonos Radio HD..but apparently you have to be part of the “network” that is connected at home to play it - not sure if that’s because HD sound needs higher bandwidth or something else. 

So two questions: 

  1. You still can’t use Sonos HD Radio unless you’re part of your “main” network, correct? 
  2. If #1 is correct, will that ever change so if you are on the go you can listen over cellular/bluetooth? I mean even if it’s not HD audio, just the fact it’s available would be nice.  My understanding is that you can’t listen at all unless you’re part of the main home network. 
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Best answer by Airgetlam 23 May 2022, 05:19

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9 replies

You may be thinking that the ‘player’ is on your phone. Instead, your phone is merely a remote control talking to your speakers, where Sonos actually runs. This means, unless you’re using a remote play system, such as Bluetooth, or AirPlay 2, all Sonos streams require the speaker to be on a network, so that the speaker (not your phone) can reach out to get the streaming source, in this case Sonos Radio HD.

There’s no indication at this point that Sonos wants to rewrite the underlying Sonos methodology to make it so that the controller is actually a player. 
 

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Ok. Thank you.

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So today I get an email saying you can play Sonos radio over the web. ...so...why can’t I play it on roam? 

I don’t have email from Sonos turned on, so I don’t know what you’re referring to. Can you cut and paste that information here, so that others can read it and understand what it is?

If it is on the web, as you suggest, then you should be able to either use Bluetooth or AirPlay 2 to send the signal to the Roam. This would be, to my knowledge, the first time Sonos has put a stream on “the web” themselves. Without details, though, it would be hard to say much more.

@IcedCornholio,

You could opt to setup/add your Roam to a mobile WiFi device, or even a mobile hotspot, but note the Sonos App controlling the speaker needs to be held on a separate device to the ‘hotspot’ host.

Sonos Radio on the web can be found here: 

https://radio.sonos.com

I haven’t seen either an official announcement or seen the marketing email, but I have seen several posts that have suggested the Sonos Radio web stream is limited to an hour or less of streaming. 

Again, if someone were to post either an official announcement in the forum, or the contents of the marketing email, it would be appreciated. 

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@Airgetlam,

Bruce,

Here is a snippet from the email I received with a subject of “What new on Sonos Radio”. It doesn’t provide much info though…

 

Ross.
 

@Airgetlam,

I didn’t receive the email either, but came across mention of the web service online through other users receiving the Sonos email.

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I think it is early stages for web access of Sonos Radio - you can indeed only hear samples of the stations right now, as far as I can see there is currently no way to log in with your existing subscription (but they do ask you if you want sign up, suggesting this will bring better experience than just sample listening). A bit of a half baked roll out…