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I’m pretty sure this will get buried with all the other Youtube Music threads, but I could not find one that describes my situation. Now that Google Play Music is being decommissioned, I find myself with a prospect for a severely degraded experience.

I have a Google Play Music / Youtube Music subscription (family plan, if that matters at all).
I also have a Sonos Beam + 2x Ikea Symfonisk as surrounds.
I want a very simple thing - to put a mix of music on my system, starting from a certain song. No offline playback, no personal library, no custom playlists.

(As a bit of a background, I previously used a Google Home Mini speaker to which I could say “Hey Google, play X by Y” and it would play that song and continue a mix on Google Play Music - there was no Youtube Music back then)

 

So how can I do that?

  • In the Google Play Music App - search for song, hit the three dots → Start Radio. Then, click the “Cast” button and choose my Sonos setup
    • This is the only way I found it to work satisfactory now
    • Google Play Music will be decommissioned soon so this will stop working
  • In the Youtube Musc App - In the Google Play Music App - search for song, hit the three dots → Start Radio. Then, click the “Cast” button.
    • Sonos does not appear as a cast target. I’ve already opened a case with the Youtube Music app support team for this
    • There’s a Google support thread from April 2019 about this, with no signs of any traction
  • Use Google Assistant on Phone/Beam and say “Hey Google, play X by Y” with Google Play Music set as my default music provider
    • The song starts playing but it’s a once-off, no instant mix is created
  • Use Google Assistant on Phone/Beam and say “Hey Google, play X by Y” with Youtube Music set as my default music provider
    • The song starts playing but it’s a once-off, no instant mix is created
    • Also it seems to be prone to “playback is paused because your account is used in another location” (!?)
  • In the Sonos App - search for song on Google Play Music, start playing it, and the click the three dots → Start Radio
    • This used to be more streamlined, with the “Start Radio” option in the search results, but seems to have moved after upgrading to S2
    • Also, it seems this method is prone to repeating the first song (the “seed”) after a few other songs (link to relevant discussion)
    • Google Play Music will be decommissioned soon so this will stop working
  • In the Sonos App - search for song on Youtube Music
    • In the song three dots menu, there is no option to Start Radio
    • After starting to play that song (single song), in the three dots menu, there is still no option to Start Radio (like the scenario with Google Play Music above)

So bottom line, the only scenarios that give me satisfactory results will stop working in 2-4 months. Google doesn’t seem too keen on fixing their Youtube Music App, and Sonos likewise doesn’t seem to care about adding more than basic functionality for the Youtube Music service.

Have I lucked out with building a Google Play Music / Sonos ecosystem?

I’m really tempted to switch to Spotify but I really really liked the mixes Google Play Music was providing, and its seemingly complete library (there have only been 2 or 3 albums that I could not find).

Hi @vladk2k, thank you for reaching out.

Your frustration is understandable and as much as possible we want you to have the best experience.

However, changes made by Google regarding Google Music service are out of our control.

What we can offer you right now is to try other streaming services that might suit your needs.

Let us know what else we can do to improve your experience.

in the SONOS app I choose YouTube music and I don not see the radio stations or genres. I am missing the Browse stations element that I use with GPM.

 

On YouTube Music through SONOS app I see; 

Home

New Releases

Charts

Library

Your Mix

 

On Google Play Music through SONOS app I see the following; 

It’s Wednesday Afternoon

Recommended

Music Library

Top charts

New Releases

Browse Stations (which shows moods and genres)

 

Using the YouTube Music app I can see moods and genres. Is there any way that SONOS can add the ‘moods and genres’ element to their app when interfacing with YouTube Music?

Hi @mmca22gr, thank you for the update.

For the question, we currently have no way of changing how our Music Services function and layout.

It’ll depend on Google to make changes and then we adapt to the changes.

However, I can pass this along as feedback and feature request; so our Engineers can discuss this with Google.

If you have other concerns, feel free to reach out. 

@Kyle A Now that you have invested time in implementing the Cast (media routes) for Play Music, you can refurbish that to work with the YouTube Music app instead of deleting that code when the Play Music app is gone. That would be awesome. And Cast for other apps would be fantastic!

@Kyle A Now that you have invested time in implementing the Cast (media routes) for Play Music, you can refurbish that to work with the YouTube Music app instead of deleting that code when the Play Music app is gone. That would be awesome. And Cast for other apps would be fantastic!


As with all the other requests in this thread, this is work Google need to do, they need to add Cast support to their app. Sadly Google is an advertising company, with little interest in further software development of YTM.

@controlav YouTube Music already has Cast support, so Sonos just has to add a media route for it.

See: https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/media/mediarouteprovider

Hi @clas00904, thank you for reaching out and getting our attention to this.

Sorry for the late response; I would like to clarify, are you referring to Google Play Direct Play? for YouTube Music.

If so, yes, I will pass this along as well; our engineers are working currecnlty with Google on this matter.

For now, the recommendation is to continue using Google Music; we expect for the service to continue until end of the year.

Until then, our engineers will be working with Google to bring more functionality of YouTube Music to our Sonos System.

If you have other concerns, feel free to reach out.

If the YouTube music interface supports stations, which it does and mine from Google Play Music are there, what is preventing Sonos from supporting them as well? This is a pretty major gap for me since I listen to stations more than anything else.

this issue  is also Logged at google: https://support.google.com/youtubemusic/thread/46255572?hl=en

Hi @vikingarcher, we in the customer service don’t have exact information on our partnership with Google. 

It could be a business decision, limitation on access, or the function is best suited in the native app.

In any case, our engineers will work with Google to bring functionalities from Google Play that we currently have to YouTube Music in the Sonos System.

If you have other concerns, feel free to reach out.

GPM is finally history and the problem described by vladk2k is not solved yet.

When I realized the missing feature in YTM, I could foresee both feature requests at sonos and google’s side. Both blaming “the others” have to find a solution. Something which was possible for services previously provided by the same companies. Really sad.

GPM is finally history and the problem described by vladk2k is not solved yet.

When I realized the missing feature in YTM, I could foresee both feature requests at sonos and google’s side. Both blaming “the others” have to find a solution. Something which was possible for services previously provided by the same companies. Really sad.

What it took me a while to realise (and I mainly use Apple Music via the Sonos app, but a bit of Bandcamp, Mixcloud, Soundcloud as well) is that once you select the audio service you are using an interface provided by that service provider.

So in my case, for reasons only known to themselves, Apple have not provided a way to “favourite” a track whilst listening to it in Spotify. And, when I search for playlists in the main screen, those in my Apple Music library do not appear. Again, Apple’s choice.

It sounds like Google have chosen not to provide the view you are looking for in their YouTube/Sonos integration (or, most likely, haven’t bothered to add it since they first implemented the integration.)

As to Chromecast I don’t think that Sonos has implemented the “cast” protocol, to be a receiver of music. There’s previous Community discussions claiming that it requires specific hardware, but I’m doubtful. More likely it requires a licensing deal and commercial agreements that are either not a priority or not acceptable to one side or the other

You might be right with the “interface” and even with chromecast. Topic is: both were possible with google play music und with youtube music (same company) it is not working anymore. It doesn’t matter if it is on sonos’ or google’s side: they have been able to provide the feature with the same hardware just 1 day (ok, now 3 weeks) ago. So they are able to do it again.

But there is no progress beside telling the customers (both paying for sonos hardware and youtube music), the other side is responsible.

I’d like to add that I find the Youtube Music implementation in Sonos S1 extremely disappointing. I generally opt for “My Discovery Mix” or one of the mood/genre Stations or Playlists, none of these are available in the Sonos YTM app. I find myself more and more using the Android YTM app on my phone and then using bluetooth to connect to speaker systems bypassing Sonos kit altogether. I do get a sense that Google (and presumably Apple) have no interest in improving their Sonos app implementations since both of those now offer physical speakers which are in competition with Sonos.

A happy compromise for me at least would be for Sonos to support chromecast on all of their legacy (S1) and current (S2) devices. It seems mind boggling that this still isn’t available.

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