I used to be able to play music i have stored on my phone and suddenly "this device" option has completly disapered as an option under any tab on the app.
I updated by phone and the app, i check permissions, all the file locrion stored on my phone are under music, nothing has changed from when i could play from my phone to now when i cant.
This is very frusting as there are some songs i have that arent availiable on streaming services.
How do i fix it?
Best answer by Airgetlam
View originalDid Google say that Android local files cannot be made available to Sonos? Where was this stated? I freely admit that I may have missed it.
And yet Sonos hasn’t removed the capability to play from a local hard drive, or an NAS, only mobile devices as dictated by those who control those operating systems.
Not my view at all. A smartphone is an excellent, virtually perfect streaming device. In my case when I had to move to a Pixel as LG exited the phone business, I kept my G8X ThinQ as a streaming device. Why not? It has excellent wifi capability, a nice screen and additional internal storage capacity.
I have albums that you cannot get on any streaming platform, and you have streaming platforms that secure and then lose parts of their collection on an ongoing basis so just because a service has what you want today, there is no guarantee they will tomorrow, or that the price will remain affordable for you. How about if your ISP goes down for any reason? You would be very thankful to have local files. What if your bandwidth was capped or data transmissions capped? For many people, the Internet and by extension streaming services are not equitable, and now Sonos has decided to simply acquiescence any power to the streaming services.
So if you actually want to take advantage of true wireless freedom as a music lover, Sonos will only support streaming services. I think it would be entirely possible for Sonos to make sure that they stayed in the loop with the major phone players, keeping abreast of any minor changes to how local files are made accessible to their software. I am guessing here, but rather than pay any developers on their team to keep up with whatever changes phone companies make via OS updates that effect local file access, they would rather put all the resources into staying in-step with streaming services.
No argument about that as a common sense approach to minimize staff and maximize profit, I get how capitalism works, but Sonos has not provided any proof that for them to keep up with accessing local files on your phone, is actually no longer viable. They simply imply that it might be a problem. Had Sonos told me they were considering crippling the capability of their platform in this manner I would not have dumped thousands of dollars so readily into their products. Yes I am indeed rather bitter about this.
Until Sonos demonstrates why they could not continue to support local file access for Android and iOS. It is not enough to say it may be a problem for them, that is part of the cost of doing business, and I do not imagine it is a significant cost. I freely admit that I may be wrong, but sorry Sonos, you don’t get to make such an impactful decision without telling those clients who’s money you have already taken exactly why you made the decision. And vague allusions as to the impact of supporting this crucial feature on their bottom line is woefully inadequate. Prove to those of us who have sunk our money into your products that it is not viable.
I may as well simply sell of my Sonos gear now. I did not purchase it simply to enrich streaming services, I wanted choice, I paid for choice.
Personally, I have no use for music stored on my phone/pad/computer. I don’t want them wasting time fussing with music. As I prepare files that will be stored on the NAS they will be stored temporarily on my computer, but I never play from the computer. There are a few tracks on my iPad that were loaded from the factory. I’ll use these occasionally to test issues brought up on this Community.
I can see some utility in keeping a copy of some music files on a phone/pad that can be played offsite to various devices via Bluetooth or Airplay 2. I’ve never found streaming via Bluetooth or Airplay 2 to be very reliable.
Unless somebody can actually demonstrate that playing local files from my Pixel 7 Pro doesn’t work with Sonos, I call * on this decision. A company can benefit financially from “business” decisions without direct financial payment. If you know that streaming services will make porting to your products in a more straight forward way if you tacitly support their business model, well that is a huge advantage.
In my case I have a Sonos system consisting of an Arc two Sub 2,s, two Fives and Two Moves. That was my audio system that used to support my local files stored on my phone. I ripped many albums that I owned on compact disc to Flac files and stored them on my phone. I used to be able to stream them to my Sonos system. Now I can’t. It is * straight up that this feature was too difficult to support. It is about maintaining marketability with streaming services. Of that I am sure.
*Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.*
+17
Playing from a computer is also always an option. You might want to try Plex.
+1
In another topic iBroadcast was mentioned, that has a free option that allows you to play your uploaded music.
Free if you want 128kbps quality music!
+1
Hi Bruce,
Thank you for your help, my orginal search must not have been worded correctly as i didnt see those articles.
Reading through them, this seems like a mega money grab decision on sonos end. I think ill need to looks in to an alternate speaker system and try to have my money refunded for these.
Poor business decision to take away a perfectly good feature and then make you buy a whole new item to continue to use
Sonos want you to upgrade to Bluetooth with their new Era speakers. You know, that years old flakey technology that they now promote as cutting edge!
I've attached an extract of an email from Sonos, the response to a query about their faltering support for "owned" music. Nowhere does it say that they are unable to support Android "This device" playback. Basically, they just can't be bothered. The bit about the unreliability of "This device" playback is embarrassing and laughable given their decision to embrace Bluetooth!
+17
In another topic iBroadcast was mentioned, that has a free option that allows you to play your uploaded music.
Oh, I did forget the third option, Bluetooth, which I suppose you could possibly consider a ‘money grab’, if you didn’t already have a Sonos device that had Bluetooth built in. Seems like a tenuous assertion, though.
Hi Bruce,
Thank you for your help, my orginal search must not have been worded correctly as i didnt see those articles.
Reading through them, this seems like a mega money grab decision on sonos end. I think ill need to looks in to an alternate speaker system and try to have my money refunded for these.
Poor business decision to take away a perfectly good feature and then make you buy a whole new item to continue to use it.
Very upsetting.
My interpretation of the article places the “blame” elsewhere than Sonos:
“As newer versions of mobile operating systems are released, it can sometimes change the way information is shared between devices, and this feature will no longer be compatible with newer versions of the Android operating system.”
How can Sonos support a feature that no longer exists in a third party product?
My opinion doesn’t match yours, having been through the iOS version of this, when the OS manufacturer (Apple) blocked the ability of Sonos, and other companies such as Bluenote, from using the mobile devices as network drives. Since this change isn’t in the interest of Sonos, it’s hard to imagine they’re behind it.
And for a money grab, I don’t understand that at all. There’s nothing that Sonos sells that would ‘fix’ this issue. It would, at the worst, require you to get an NAS, something Sonos doesn’t make or sell. And for likely no cost at all, you could put your music on an already existing PC or Mac (neither of which Sonos sells) and use the already existing ‘play from this library’ function that has always existed.
Hi Bruce,
Thank you for your help, my orginal search must not have been worded correctly as i didnt see those articles.
Reading through them, this seems like a mega money grab decision on sonos end. I think ill need to looks in to an alternate speaker system and try to have my money refunded for these.
Poor business decision to take away a perfectly good feature and then make you buy a whole new item to continue to use it.
Very upsetting.
Here’s the original announcement from May 4…
Here’s Sonos’ own FAQ
https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/play-music-stored-on-your-android-device
Any chance you have an Android phone? There are already several threads on this, but the easiest reference I could quickly find is this:
https://www.engadget.com/sonos-is-ending-support-for-local-file-playback-on-android-184537921.html
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