Will Sonos support Google Cast for Audio?
Userlevel 2
Just read the announcement of the new Google Cast for Audio (http://chrome.blogspot.com/2015/01/introducing-google-cast-for-audio.html). I don't see Sonos listed as an early supporter, though. Any chance something is in the works?
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Userlevel 1
I was just about to purchase my first Sonos until I saw the Google Cast announcement this morning. Now I'll wait to see what Sonos do. I have two Chromecasts, and would like the music to be the same experience to make it easy for my other half who is not too tech savvy. The less apps and options the better.
Userlevel 7
+17
RDog - you hit the nail on the head and your post of 6 months ago was certainly very insightful !
As you say, this is firmly up to Sonos to support if they chose to. However, I fear they will adopt the same stubbornness that lead to their Spotify Connect and DTS decisions (not to support either) and their corporate pride will prevent them accepting that times are changing and they need to move and with them (and fast) if they are not to be left dead in the water in 1-2 years. CES is bringing more and more devices and companies into a market Sonos has had to themselves for a decade. Each vendor needs some extra USP if they are going to take them on. Sonos is certainly not known for its speed in doing anything fast so this could well be another nail in their coffin. I hope they can prove me wrong.
As you say, this is firmly up to Sonos to support if they chose to. However, I fear they will adopt the same stubbornness that lead to their Spotify Connect and DTS decisions (not to support either) and their corporate pride will prevent them accepting that times are changing and they need to move and with them (and fast) if they are not to be left dead in the water in 1-2 years. CES is bringing more and more devices and companies into a market Sonos has had to themselves for a decade. Each vendor needs some extra USP if they are going to take them on. Sonos is certainly not known for its speed in doing anything fast so this could well be another nail in their coffin. I hope they can prove me wrong.
If Cast for Audio takes off and proves eventually to be highly functional, I would (sadly) ditch my Sonos kit and turn elsewhere. In the meantime, I will hold off recommending Sonos to anyone until the picture becomes clearer.Oops, missed out an important bit from the first sentence. What I meant to say was:
If Cast for Audio takes off and proves eventually to be highly functional, I would (sadly) ditch my Sonos kit and turn elsewhere if Sonos did not provide Cast for Audio support!
It's been four months since the official response from Sonos. Could we please get another response confirming or denying the future implementation of cast for audio? Personally I'd like this as I would like to connect podcast apps, continuing playback when I get home by just connecting to the Sonos.
Userlevel 1
Agreed!! I have been wanting to cast audio playing on my phone or laptop to a nearby speaker to get full use of this premium audio equipment I purchased from Sonos. The speakers on my phone and laptop are terrible, and I'd love to be able to quickly cast the audio of a Netflix stream or YouTube clip from my device to my speakers.
Yes. I want to be able to cast Netflix audio to my Sonos located in the bathroom without rooting my phone and using AllCast and AirSonos.
I have been waiting to use Pocket Casts with Sonos. Please make it happen with Google Cast!
Userlevel 7
+22
Thanks Chick - very interesting and yes that would give Google Casting as long as people have aux in device (although those with Play:1/Play:3s will still complain. But a good interim fix.
Looks like "Hendrix" will support multi-room audio. Will be watching tomorrow for any hint of Sonos integration...
So now that Google released a Google Cast for Audio reciever that will be multi room capable and only costs 35$ its time for Sonos to integrate this!
Only disadvantage of the Chromecast Audio device vs. integration is of course with integration you could chose each speaker in your system individually from the google compatible apps. With the audio device I have to go in Sonos app to chose which speakers get the chromecast stream. Not a big deal and then lets me control everything again in Sonos app. which I do prefer.
Thanks, that answered some questions I had regarding Chicks's earlier suggestion to use the aux port to get around Sonos's lack of iOS Control Center support (since all the other streaming apps that support Cast work with Control Center).
But seriously, wow, the Chomecast Audio is a game-changer. There's already an article on Engadget comparing it to Sonos ("competitor at 1/10 of the price"). That said, you have to put your own system together, which a lot of people won't want to do. So there's still a place for Sonos, but they need to get their head out of their rear and focus on the hardware, and adopt Cast as a standard before they get left in the dust. With all the other services they support, I don't see it being that difficult. No specialized hardware is required. Sonos has a great system, but they can't compete with Google's reach to get all these app devs to code compatible apps. YouTube support alone will be huge.
The aux trick could potentially be a fix for me, although it would kind of suck to have to buy a Chromecast to fix the Sonos (never mind the Sonos 5 or Connect that I'd have to buy, as I was already planning on getting one). I'd rather keep buying Sonos, but if I'm going to have to kluge stuff together, I'd at least consider selling my Sonoses and buying higher quality speakers/amps, outdoor speakers (Sonos still hasn't created a weatherproof product) and hooking them up to Chromecast, at probably 25-50% of the cost of Sonos.
Whoa, Chris. No need to get so defensive. I meant "trick," as in something I wasn't aware of. I thought if you did that, it would only play through that one speaker.
That said, it is a kluge compared to building it into the app. I shouldn't have to buy another piece of hardware to do something that they obviously can support, given the compatibility with the Google Play Music casting. If that wasn't around, I'd give them the benefit of the doubt, that despite being able to support so many other individual services, they couldn't just support one service that would give them access to all the others and greatly reduce their development efforts.
"Most content' is on Soundcloud, really? Do you have a source for that? So you're saying I could have just listened to the Nexus announcements today on Soundcloud instead of the livestream on YT? Never mind the fact that young people overwhelmingly use YT for music discovery (in Time 3 yr ago). Soundcloud's interface sucks, too. It's too hard to find actual artist's stuff in between all the covers. They don't even have big artists like Taylor Swift.
You have an iPhone. How do you control the volume on your Sonos when your screen is off? Does it not bother you that you have to turn on and unlock your phone just to adjust the volume? Or am I missing something?
That said, it is a kluge compared to building it into the app. I shouldn't have to buy another piece of hardware to do something that they obviously can support, given the compatibility with the Google Play Music casting. If that wasn't around, I'd give them the benefit of the doubt, that despite being able to support so many other individual services, they couldn't just support one service that would give them access to all the others and greatly reduce their development efforts.
"Most content' is on Soundcloud, really? Do you have a source for that? So you're saying I could have just listened to the Nexus announcements today on Soundcloud instead of the livestream on YT? Never mind the fact that young people overwhelmingly use YT for music discovery (in Time 3 yr ago). Soundcloud's interface sucks, too. It's too hard to find actual artist's stuff in between all the covers. They don't even have big artists like Taylor Swift.
You have an iPhone. How do you control the volume on your Sonos when your screen is off? Does it not bother you that you have to turn on and unlock your phone just to adjust the volume? Or am I missing something?
Powered speakers
Chromecast Audio
Power running to Chromecast Audio device
Power running to powered speakers
And something I've not seen mentioned...speaker wire connecting the 2 speakers
This is not really an accurate comparison. It only applies if you are using Google's own Chromecast Audio dongle, which is basically comparable to the Sonos CONNECT (at a fraction of a price). Google is partnering with various companies to add Google Cast for Audio support directly to their all-in-one speakers. So hardware competing directly with the Sonos PLAY line exists (Sony and LG are already shipping), it's just not being made directly by Google. So the start of the hardware ecosystem is there, and if Google delivers multi-room synchronization that works well, then the one main advantage Sonos has evaporates.
I'm not about to ditch my Sonos gear, either. But without them adding Google Cast for Audio support, I'm not likely to expand it, either. Audio content providers don't want to support multiple APIs for accessing whole-home speaker systems. So when faced with selecting between implementing Google Cast for Audio and implementing Sonos' proprietary API, I don't see many putting developer resources into Sonos going forward. Further, the Sonos Controller app tries to make all content providers a one-size-fits-all and is also aimed at making the branding Sonos rather than that of the content provider. As a content provider, you absolutely want to control your brand experience, and making your own app with user experience tailored to your service will be 1000x more appealing than implementing Sonos' API and showing up as just another random Music Service in Sonos' app. It's better for the end users, too (witness all the desperate cries for Sonos to implement Spotify Connect because the Sonos Spotify experience blows donkey balls compared to Spotify's native app).
And yes, Google Cast for Audio is similar to AirPlay. Except it has one big difference: it works on both Android and iOS. So again, for developers, it makes more sense to support Cast than it does Airplay from a development effort and support perspective. But to be fair, I think Sonos should also implement an Airplay receiver, since the Apple ecosystem is pretty large on its own. With Spotify caving and implementing Google Cast support, I think Sonos was probably smart to pass on Spotify Connect as I expect hardware vendors to abandon Spotify's proprietary streaming in droves now and only implement Google Case for Audio.
If in the case of CC:
1. Multi room play in sync works as well as it does with Sonos
2. Music play is as stable as it is with Sonosnet
then Sonos has an existential challenge as an independent operation, for the first time in ten years. CC then suddenly expands the competitive scenario for Sonos by orders of magnitude, to include the makers of all kinds of active speakers at price points from 2 digits all the way to 5 digits. Not just the Bluesound and few others of today.
I also see no reason why Google can't do something similar and yet more innovative given that it is now ten years down the line, than what Sonos has done with Sonosnet, if something is needed to be done for stable music play.
Interesting times ahead, and good news for all home AV users.
1. Multi room play in sync works as well as it does with Sonos
2. Music play is as stable as it is with Sonosnet
then Sonos has an existential challenge as an independent operation, for the first time in ten years. CC then suddenly expands the competitive scenario for Sonos by orders of magnitude, to include the makers of all kinds of active speakers at price points from 2 digits all the way to 5 digits. Not just the Bluesound and few others of today.
I also see no reason why Google can't do something similar and yet more innovative given that it is now ten years down the line, than what Sonos has done with Sonosnet, if something is needed to be done for stable music play.
Interesting times ahead, and good news for all home AV users.
We can have some fun here putting out our views on what Sonos management can do to counter this threat, and I suggest the following should be ruled out straightaway:
1. Praying the Google is unable to achieve multi room and stable music play
2. Sell the company while the value remains high
1. Praying the Google is unable to achieve multi room and stable music play
2. Sell the company while the value remains high
they released the new play:5 without google cast or bluetooth support, brilliant strategy.
Still no answer from sonos 😞
Userlevel 7
+22
Some people, not me, are in love with the native app for their service.
Userlevel 7
+22
I agree
I don't think GoogleCast for Audio has to imply a bad playback experience, however, since it is also based on the audio playback device streaming the music itself, just like Sonos already does. Its more of a control mechanism for telling the device(s) what next to stream. Now, if we were talking about that garbage called AirPlay, then yes, I agree the experience would be bad since that's a really poorly designed protocol that depends on the sending device (mobile/etc) to push audio at the playback device.
Userlevel 7
+17
Google casting from native apps means that sonos does not have to keep up with changes so much, as long as the native app keeps casting it will send music to sonos or a CCA. Instead of sonos trying to catch up/fix things like bbc iplayer or audible etc
Eutopia would be that you could group CCA and sonos together......
Eutopia would be that you could group CCA and sonos together......
+1 for full Google cast support, and some sort of device to take advantage of the Google assistant without buying all new speakers.
Userlevel 7
+17
Looks like vizio will, and 8hr portable speaker....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDvZjkU3wko
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDvZjkU3wko
Userlevel 7
+17
Only with an android controller, want iphone to do it as well.
It would allow bbc iplayer radio to cast to sonos, the major radio stations and massive podcast/catchup library in the uk.
It would allow bbc iplayer radio to cast to sonos, the major radio stations and massive podcast/catchup library in the uk.
Userlevel 1
The Sonos system already works somewhat as a destination for music casting from the Google Play Music app, though it doesn't seem to work from other apps. It might be that Sonos already has what is needed for this new "Google Music Cast" and it's just a matter of the code used in the Google Music app being rolled out to the public for integration in other apps to cast music. I hope it's that simple!
Also, my better half was also very tired of all the remotes and DIY solutions I have put her thru. She really loves using the Sonos setup, and it's been a great update to our home.
Also, my better half was also very tired of all the remotes and DIY solutions I have put her thru. She really loves using the Sonos setup, and it's been a great update to our home.
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