Airplay 2 - Only for the new Sonos One

It’s a processing power or memory issue. Play:5 gen 2 has been out a good while and they made it backward compatible because they could. For those that have older equipment adding a Sonos One to your system to make all your speakers able to play is not unreasonable for a protocol that did not exist when you purchased your speakers.

Really disappointed in the announcement. While I understand Play 5 gen 1 being excluded, it seems to me that Any currently sold device should be supported. What about the Boost? There should be a reasonable way for people who have invested significant $ in sonos to be able to get Airplay2 without purchasing a new speaker.

Boost has no processing ability it is an access point. That’s like saying why doesn’t netgear make my router airplay capable. Sonos have ability to all devices capable of doing it. They have no reason to exclude any devices that are capable. They are not capable.

Proof being the playbar play3 and play1 are all currently sold devices. If they could add to those older chipsets they would. Why would they favor a playbase and give it ability and not the playbar if it wasn’t hardware related. They don’t want you to buy playbase over playbar. So anynclaim they want you to have to buy current equipment is invalid. Would you rather they go the route they did for years and say none gets airplay because we want all devices to have same ability. No that held Sonos back for years.

Well, actually the original airplay was implemented on access point technology (airport express). Now I don't pretend to know what processing power will actually be needed for airplay 2 but I'll hold my position that some other entrypoint should be made available for folks who have invested big money in their systems. I have no need for another speaker but would like to have some option that doesn't involve buying another speaker.

The airport express was built for airplay and sold as an airplay device - no relation to adding to an existing piece of hardware not designed ever to run airplay. Some designed and sold prior to existence of airplay and never even hinted at remotely having airplay ability.

I imagine the limitation is more memory related then processing related.

Get a Sonos One and then you have ability to play to all your older equipment. That is not an unreasonable need to add ability to legacy equipment. I feel lucky we are getting a free upgrade to a completely new standard. Free by Sonos. Thank you Sonos for keeping our investment up to date.

Perhaps I was unclear. I did not say I wanted it backported to my speakers, although that would be nice. I believe there should be a way to provide airplay 2 support without purchasing another speaker. That could mean porting to the Boost, or upgrading the Connect. I am uninterested in any “smart” speaker, and have no need for a playbase or Play5.

And reviewing my original posting, I can see that I was writing one thing while thinking another. So I apologize for that. That being said, when airplay 2 finally sees the light of day, we'll know what the processing requirements will be.