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Free podcast streaming for S1 - tunein deprecated?

  • 26 November 2023
  • 13 replies
  • 348 views

Lots of old Sonos speakers. S1 user with TuneIn service for podcast streaming (NPRs Wait Wait)
The last couple of times I’ve tried to stream I get “connection to TuneIn was lost”. Do some google-fu and it says “TuneIn on S1 no longer supported”. 
So I go looking for another service. I find Pocket Cast. Except to have a Pocket Cast account apparently I need to pay $40 a year. No thanks. 
So is there any way for me to stream podcasts on my old system - or do I have to pay 1000’s to replace speakers / subwoofers or get yet another subscription service?

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13 replies

Hard to tell, without knowing what device you’re trying to stream from, and what Sonos devices you have, unfortunately. 

Thanks @Airgetlam! I have the latest iPhone and iOS. I’m using the old S1 Sonos app because I have original Sonos 5 gen 1, and I don’t think they work with the S2 app. I’ve got six of the speakers (and a subwoofer) scattered about the house. Does that help troubleshoot? Thank you again!

Yes, it does. Using that PLAY:5 gen 1 is problematic, it has neither AirPlay 2 nor Bluetooth. What are the other 6 speakers?

If push came to shove, I’d probably connect a cable to the PLAY:5s line in, and when I wanted to play something from the iPhone, I’d plug the other end into the iPhone’s headphone jack…assuming you’ve also got an ancient iPhone to go with the older Sonos. Alternately, you could connect a Bluetooth receiver to that PLAY:5s line in, and just use Bluetooth from your iPhone to send the signal there. Of course, once the signal is inside the Sonos ecosystem via the line in, you can play it on any of your speakers. 

Honestly, I didn’t know the old TuneIn was no longer supported on S1 (which implies S2 as well). I haven’t used TuneIn in years, since they gave up their MLB contract. I use iHeart radio to listen to the SF Giants on KNBR. Which brings up the question, have you checked if your NPR station is carried somewhere else? Sometimes, you need to check with the station. 

Hey @Airgetlam thanks for the thoughtful response. All 6 are Play 5s. Gen 1. Great idea on the Bluetooth to line in. I wonder if there’s an AirPlay to line in - that would be more stable perhaps. Still - excellent suggestion, going to figure that out. You saved the day!
 

It’s a shame because up until last week I’d simply search for the show in the S1 app. It would show me the TuneIn page with the show (wait wait don’t tell me) on it. I’d hit play. Boom radio resonating through the house. Now it’s going to be a bunch of fiddling - unless I switch to the latest gen speakers. And even then?

My concern is I have super fast internet (gig up and down) and sometimes my gen 1 STILL craps out on connectivity. I’ve connected one of the speakers directly to a router  (I use an Eero mesh) with a physical cable to reset a bunch of times. Speakers work for a bit then I get sporadic unpredictable dropouts again. I can’t tell if I plunk down yet more thousands of dollars to refresh all the speakers if the problem will persist. Trouble is - I havent found a speaker that’s half as good as the play 5. It’s just a shame that 70% of the time it only works 80% of the time. And this podcast drop is yet another ding to the ecosystem. Sigh.

sorry for the digression. Thank you again for the thoughtful and helpful answer. 

Sounds more like either a duplicate IP address issue, or simple wifi interference .

I’ve never seen a simple AirPlay 2 device with an analog output, but that doesn’t mean such doesn’t exist. 

Very familiar with Wait, Wait…but I have to admit it’s been a few years since I last listened. Most of my time is taken by Radiolab and Science Friday.  And a few more non NPR programs, but since I use S2 and have speakers that do both AirPlay 2 and/or Bluetooth, I use Overcast on my iPhone, and just ‘send’ to Sonos when necessary, or to my car, or a pair of Apple Airpods. 

You may want to double check your speakers, some of them may already be S2 capable. I was pleased when S2 came out to figure out the only speaker I needed to replace was that old PLAY:5, everything else I owned was capable of running S2. That included a passel of PLAY:1s, PLAY:3s, and a couple of PLAYBARs. I’d already replaced a failing BRIDGE with a better BOOST. 

Oh, to check on that duplicate IP address issue, try unplugging all of your Sonos devices from power, then reboot your router. Give it a couple of minutes to come back up before plugging back in the Sonos. They’ll ask for new IPs from the refreshed router. If that works, it will last, at least potentially, until the next software update from Sonos (depending on the state of your router). In order to make it more ‘permanent’, check the router’s manual on how to set up reserved IP addresses. 

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I have the same issue. I have also listened to NPR’s (National Public Radio) Up First podcast on my Sonos S1 system for years.

Now, NONE of the NPR podcasts will play through my Sonos S1 system using either TuneIn or MyTunerRadio. Anytime I try one I get the error that the connection was lost to TuneIn or MyTunerRadio.

I have NOT found any trouble with ANY other podcasts that I have tried which are NOT from NPR. They all seem to work fine.

I have worked with Sonos Support and some very helpful technicians have assisted me but thus far a solution remains elusive. 

Yes. I certainly could retrofit my old Play 5 gen 1 with a Bluetooth receiver connected to the audio input jack. I would still prefer to find out what went wrong with the way I have always listened to up until now.

Have you contacted both NPR and your local NPR station?  I’m wondering if they’ve decided to leave TuneIn and myTuner, to some other provider, not something Sonos would know about. There’s a lot of radio redistribution services. The first I’d check is iHeart radio, but that’s merely because I had to move to them to hear my San Francisco Giants broadcasts, once TuneIn decided not to pay MLB for access. 

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Thank you, yes. I did submit a ‘bug’ report through NPR. They may or may not ever directly respond to me, but I gave it a shot!

 

I too can’t listen to a lot of different podcasts and they are non NPR through Tune In or iHeart on Sonos S1. But I have a S2 system in family room and Tune In and iHeart works fine for the same podcasts as the S1 system won’t play. Kinda frustrating.

Have you contacted NPR to see if they’ve moved the content elsewhere? TuneIn and iHeart radio are only two out of a wide range of companies that redistributes radio content. It’s also conceivable to me that NPR has put that podcast content in their own app, and not allowed other companies access / legal rights to redistribute it. Sonos wouldn’t know about that, only contacting NPR directly might be the best solution. 

They are all non NPR podcasts. Tony Kornheiser, Pablo Torre, etc etc. it must be a system S1 thing since the same podcasts play through Sonos app through Tune In on S2.

That might be worth submitting a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this problem, and calling Sonos Support to discuss it. There really shouldn’t be any difference in play back between S1 and S2, they would both be reaching out to the same server. I bet Sonos would be fascinated by your hard data proving it works on S2, and not on S1. Something they could hand off to a programmer to look at. 

I called Sonos Support on this. Spent 40 minutes on phone trying to diagnose issue. But no results. Said they would get back with me.