I have 2 Play1 and a Playbar which are great and I control them from my iPad. I can play anything from my music library and podcasts but I have apps on the iPad like BBC iPlayer which I can't stream onto my Sonos speakers. Any ideas
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I presume you mean streaming the audio from the iPlayer to your Sonos speakers, whilst watching the video on your iPad, correct? I don't think this can be done. Of course if you buy an Apple TV device, connect it to your TV you can stream the video to the TV and the audio will be played through your Sonos.
Actually, I think the OP means the BBC iPlayer (Radio) app.
Sonos have made it possible for third party apps to play to the Sonos units (like Spotify now does) but this would be down to the BBC to implement. As of now we don't have any clue as to whether this may or may not happen.
Sonos have made it possible for third party apps to play to the Sonos units (like Spotify now does) but this would be down to the BBC to implement. As of now we don't have any clue as to whether this may or may not happen.
Perhaps he does, but if he wants to access live BBC radio then this is available via TuneIn. Of course it's not possible to access historical BBC broadcasts, download or access BBC podcasts as can be done with the Radio Player app, but the OP doesn't make it clear what he actually wants to than play on his Sonos.
The short answer is no. Unless whatever you listen to has integrated with the Sonos app, you can't listen to it through your Sonos speakers. This very much limits how you can use your Sonos speakers. There are some workarounds, but nothing that totally makes it possible to listen to anything you want. You can look to see if there's a hack for the BBC iPlayer (there is one for NPR) or you can set up SonosAir on your computer. This is the one thing I find endlessly maddening about the Sonos speakers - you can't use them to listen to anything you want, only what's already been integrated with the Sonos App.
While I find it maddening, I don't blame Sonos for that issue. They set up a system that would play legal streams of anyone who cared to take part in their system, by integrating the APIs that they developed. At that point, it becomes an exercise for the other party to implement the streams, using Sonos' API.
Now I'm not going to try to tell you that Sonos API handles everything. While I've not looked in to it at all, it's pretty clear that there are a lot of areas that is might be improved on, based on posts here in these boards. But, that being said, it does a fairly simple job and seems to do it fairly well, it's just all the bells and whistles that seem to be missing/desired. But (and being a bit closer to my own experience), it's often legal issues that get in the way of some streams not being able to be carried. The broadcaster may not have the legal right to "send" the data outside of their own country (geo-locking) or own software (or even any repeated plays). We're in a difficult time where there are still contracts made years before streaming was a thing that are impacting people's ability to stream music. And in my experience, it's often a case of having 12 songs requiring 12 different legal contracts in order to use them. Granted, my experience wasn't in what you would call "popular" music, but as an edge case, it provided a good look into the byzantine maze that is music clearance.
So, sometimes I'm indeed frustrated, but I have to temper that frustration across many people/companies. Sure, some of it may be Sonos, but I'd be willing to bet that it's a small percentage. I don't think they would ever refuse a company that came to them and said "we'd like to sign up to be a partner and stream across your network", much less monitored and censored any streams.
Now I'm not going to try to tell you that Sonos API handles everything. While I've not looked in to it at all, it's pretty clear that there are a lot of areas that is might be improved on, based on posts here in these boards. But, that being said, it does a fairly simple job and seems to do it fairly well, it's just all the bells and whistles that seem to be missing/desired. But (and being a bit closer to my own experience), it's often legal issues that get in the way of some streams not being able to be carried. The broadcaster may not have the legal right to "send" the data outside of their own country (geo-locking) or own software (or even any repeated plays). We're in a difficult time where there are still contracts made years before streaming was a thing that are impacting people's ability to stream music. And in my experience, it's often a case of having 12 songs requiring 12 different legal contracts in order to use them. Granted, my experience wasn't in what you would call "popular" music, but as an edge case, it provided a good look into the byzantine maze that is music clearance.
So, sometimes I'm indeed frustrated, but I have to temper that frustration across many people/companies. Sure, some of it may be Sonos, but I'd be willing to bet that it's a small percentage. I don't think they would ever refuse a company that came to them and said "we'd like to sign up to be a partner and stream across your network", much less monitored and censored any streams.
Thanks for the replies over night (9am here now). Yes I do want to listen to BBC iPlayer radio which has some great historic programs and they would sound even better on my sonos rather than the iPad's little speakers.
You make a good point with streaming. I think the frustration is that I can stream something to my phone and listen from that tiny speaker, but not listen to that same audio from the expensive speaker sitting next to it (no joke, I actually use my Sonos 3 as a stand to prop up my iPhone so I can hear better out of the tiny speaker when I listen to podcasts/audiobooks that I can't play on my Sonos).
I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I think the issue is this: I feel like there are really two different types of speaker users. There are the folks who are 100% after sound quality and put that paramount and folks who just want something more robust and higher quality than their iPhone. The latter group just wants something easy and preferably wireless (though doesn't really matter whether it's air play, bluetooth, or SonosNet) and generally are just using the speakers as replacement phone speakers.
I feel like Sonos advertised itself as being the latter when in reality it's the former. You can't use them as replacement iPhone speakers. Every time I've expressed an issue with Sonos usability, the response has been "well, that's what you have to sacrifice to get the sound quality and multi-room usability with Sonos." Which is fine -- if Sonos had clearly spelled out these limitations on the front end. And yes, they list the apps that work with Sonos in their advertising, but I don't think they make it clear that you CANNOT use these as replacement phone speakers and there are no cheap and easy workarounds to that (like a line in on all their speakers).
Clearly Sonos works for a lot of people who only listen to spotify, or have their music libraries set up in a way that works with Sonos. But there are a lot of us out there that listen to other things (Audible, or want continuity of podcasts between phone and sonos) and I'm constantly surprised how much Sonos falls down on the job with that. I see people come on here all the time asking "Can Sonos play X or Y?" and the answer is "No, because...."
The reason I feel strongly about this is because had I known and understood the extreme usability issues with Sonos, I never would have bought them. And I actually did a lot of research. The reason I stick around here is because I so badly want the Sonos system to work for me... perhaps it's just time I gave up on them.
quitclaim,
No offense, but shotgunning multiple tl;dr replies to multiple threads, all of which seem to carry the same theme of "Sonos takes too long to do XXXYYYZZZ" is not going to endear you to the locals, nor will it gain you any sympathy for your cause, no matter how relevant. Post it once and be done with it. Otherwise, you are approaching SPAM.
And yes, your last sentence is the truth. Perhaps the time has come to give up. Sonos is not everything to everyone, nor do they strive to be. I'm sure they are more than content to please the customers who are please-able, and won't spend much time lamenting the loss of customers who are not.
No offense, but shotgunning multiple tl;dr replies to multiple threads, all of which seem to carry the same theme of "Sonos takes too long to do XXXYYYZZZ" is not going to endear you to the locals, nor will it gain you any sympathy for your cause, no matter how relevant. Post it once and be done with it. Otherwise, you are approaching SPAM.
And yes, your last sentence is the truth. Perhaps the time has come to give up. Sonos is not everything to everyone, nor do they strive to be. I'm sure they are more than content to please the customers who are please-able, and won't spend much time lamenting the loss of customers who are not.
I feel your pain. I guess I have a different viewpoint, since I bought my Sonos devices as whole home music devices, rather than as speakers for my computer or phone. And to be honest, my second purchase was a Play:5 so that I could use the line-in feature to connect either my phone or computer to it, and have it broadcast throughout the home. But I'm in video games, and the lag associated with that input makes it, for my purposes, only good for audio streaming, not for game play. Which is fine, I didn't purchase any of my Sonos to be computer speakers.
I too, did a lot of research when purchasing my Sonos, and carefully evaluated their marketing materials, since i'm somewhat of a skeptic. I didn't find that they did any misleading at all, when I was looking. That may have changed when you were looking, I don't keep up with their marketing pages. But I knew precisely what I was getting in to as I bought the other 15 or so speakers that are now littered around my home.
Sure, it would be nice to think that a speaker is just a speaker, but what Sonos sells is essentially a computer in a speaker, and I've never seen them claim that it's just a speaker. Perhaps it's because of the novelty of the concept, and people are accustomed to the last 100 years of just purchasing speakers that connect to anything that makes it slightly more difficult for general comprehension that these aren't like passive speakers. Who knows?
But since I'm aware that Sonos only makes money from selling hardware (speakers), I am fairly confident that they will continue to do everything they can with the resources they have to optimize as many sources of use for their systems as they possibly can. Unfortunately, the landscape constantly changes, and since Sonos doesn't write the other side of the API interface, they have to wait and work with the teams at the various third party companies when they're available. And sadly, I don't think many of those companies consider Sonos users to be a significant number of users. Audible, BBC, TuneIn, etc, probably consider Sonos users to be a very small percentage of their usage, and consequently don't expend a lot of cycles on the interface.
That negativity aside, I think right now Amazon is giving Sonos a lot of attention, since the two companies are working together on integrating the Echo/Alexa voice command, which would require a lot of effort from both sides (and one hopes that Sonos comes out of the process with an API for other home control systems, like Siri and Google Home). Since Audible is part of Amazon, it would be hard to think that Sonos hasn't raised the current issue with them repeatedly, so I'd think that they've gotten some response, which would be folded in to a software release somewhere along the line.
Perhaps they shouldn't be called "Speakers", so that people don't make the assumption that they'll play anything. I just don't know. But I remain pretty pleased with what I've got, which is good, considering the investment I've made. Sure, there's a list of things I want them to do, which I occasionally litter in these boards, but I also recognize the needs they have to continue to make money and exist. And the way to do that is to continue to innovate new features that will attract new purchasers to the brand. I can hope that those new features benefit me in some way, but I've already given them my money. If they want more from me, they'd need to develop some new stuff, which takes time.
I too, did a lot of research when purchasing my Sonos, and carefully evaluated their marketing materials, since i'm somewhat of a skeptic. I didn't find that they did any misleading at all, when I was looking. That may have changed when you were looking, I don't keep up with their marketing pages. But I knew precisely what I was getting in to as I bought the other 15 or so speakers that are now littered around my home.
Sure, it would be nice to think that a speaker is just a speaker, but what Sonos sells is essentially a computer in a speaker, and I've never seen them claim that it's just a speaker. Perhaps it's because of the novelty of the concept, and people are accustomed to the last 100 years of just purchasing speakers that connect to anything that makes it slightly more difficult for general comprehension that these aren't like passive speakers. Who knows?
But since I'm aware that Sonos only makes money from selling hardware (speakers), I am fairly confident that they will continue to do everything they can with the resources they have to optimize as many sources of use for their systems as they possibly can. Unfortunately, the landscape constantly changes, and since Sonos doesn't write the other side of the API interface, they have to wait and work with the teams at the various third party companies when they're available. And sadly, I don't think many of those companies consider Sonos users to be a significant number of users. Audible, BBC, TuneIn, etc, probably consider Sonos users to be a very small percentage of their usage, and consequently don't expend a lot of cycles on the interface.
That negativity aside, I think right now Amazon is giving Sonos a lot of attention, since the two companies are working together on integrating the Echo/Alexa voice command, which would require a lot of effort from both sides (and one hopes that Sonos comes out of the process with an API for other home control systems, like Siri and Google Home). Since Audible is part of Amazon, it would be hard to think that Sonos hasn't raised the current issue with them repeatedly, so I'd think that they've gotten some response, which would be folded in to a software release somewhere along the line.
Perhaps they shouldn't be called "Speakers", so that people don't make the assumption that they'll play anything. I just don't know. But I remain pretty pleased with what I've got, which is good, considering the investment I've made. Sure, there's a list of things I want them to do, which I occasionally litter in these boards, but I also recognize the needs they have to continue to make money and exist. And the way to do that is to continue to innovate new features that will attract new purchasers to the brand. I can hope that those new features benefit me in some way, but I've already given them my money. If they want more from me, they'd need to develop some new stuff, which takes time.
I too, did a lot of research when purchasing my Sonos, and carefully evaluated their marketing materials, since i'm somewhat of a skeptic. I didn't find that they did any misleading at all, when I was looking. That may have changed when you were looking, I don't keep up with their marketing pages. But I knew precisely what I was getting in to as I bought the other 15 or so speakers that are now littered around my home.
I appreciate your response and the points you made. Just to your point above re: their marketing material. If you look on their website right now, this is what it says:
"Sonos plays all the most popular music services, internet radio, audiobooks, podcasts, music downloads – you can even set it up to play your vinyl collection. With Sonos, you can enjoy whatever you love to listen to, in any and every room in your home."
And when I purchased my Sonos, I specifically looked to see if it would work with Audible and their answer was yes (without caveats unless you drilled down deeper into the website). I made the mistake of assuming that meant it would work the same as the other services covered. It doesn't.
So on a technical level, they're not lying. You *can* play audible audiobooks... if you download them into iTunes and then transfer them over as with any other song. Or if you buy a Play:5 and use the line in. If you want to listen to other audiobooks you have to go through a different service. But I think a lot of folks reading that wouldn't expect you to have to jump through such hurdles. To me when it says "you can enjoy whatever you love to listen to" it makes me think that I can... listen to whatever I love to listen to. And again, it's technically true (mostly -- you can't listen to YouTube), but not easily and definitely not as easily as they make it out to be.
I do feel like Sonos goes out of their way to say that there are no limitations in their marketing. That "you can enjoy whatever you love to listen to." I think that's misleading. And the only reason I care is that it leads to customers who are dissatisfied. It's one reason I go out of my way to discuss the Sonos limitations, so that people are aware of what they're getting into because it isn't obvious. If Sonos fits the way you listen to music then it's a great system. If it doesn't fit what you listen to, then it's endlessly frustrating.
Gee, a marketing department doesn't specifically tell you what a product doesn't do? I am shocked! I say again, shocked! :8
Sorry -- I wasn't thinking about the fact that all the threads would pop to the top when I answered them. They just all showed up in my sidebar on the first post and seemed to be different groups of people talking so I joined in the conversation without realizing some of them were older posts.
I did want to respond to your point I quoted above. I actually disagree with the statement that they don't strive to be everything to everyone. Whenever I raise an issue of usability on Twitter, Sonos reps are very quick to respond that Sonos can do what I want it to (if I get a Play:5 and line in, or use a different service). I've never had them say "this system isn't really ideal for what you're trying to do" (and frankly, I wouldn't expect them to!). When they say "With Sonos, you can enjoy whatever you love to listen to, in any and every room in your home" they seem to be sending a strong message that they are trying to be everything to everyone. They don't list many (if any) limitations on their website (that I could find).
Hey, if they're not going to be everything to everyone, then I think it makes sense to be clear up front exactly who they're for 🙂
Hey, if they're not going to be everything to everyone, then I think it makes sense to be clear up front exactly who they're for :)
Yeah, and Kellogg's should tell you that Frosted Flakes aren't really a "G-rrrr-eat start to a healthy breakfast", they really rot your teeth and give you diabetes. Like that's going to happen.
Besides, regardless of silly tweets from marketing departments, It is quite obvious via statements from the past and current CEO that they are not trying to be everything to everyone. There are clear and concrete quotes that Sonos is:
1) Not a Bluetooth speaker, nor do they wish to be.
2) Not an Airplay device, not do they wish to be.
3) A direct from the source streamer, bypassing streaming from the phone/tablet/computer.
4) A multi-room system first and foremost.
5) A quality product that does not rush anything to market, nor do they half-ass any features.
All of these things limit Sonos for what you want it to do. However, these items are first and foremost in ensuring the reliability, sound quality, and accurate syncing Sonos is known for. It is a case of horses for courses, and I dare suggest you are shopping at the wrong barn for the features you wish.
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