Playing music from iPhone library to Sonos

This is NOT a wireless connectivity issue or other communication with Sonos speakers issue. I can stream Pandora from my Sonos app all day while using 6 different iPhone apps and never have the Sonos app on the screen.

When Sonos is playing music from a streaming service, the phone is not doing anything. It tells Sonos what to do, and then the players fetch the music over WiFi on their own, you could even turn the phone off. Interesting, isn't it, that everything works fine when you cut the iPhone out of the loop and just let Sonos do it's thing?

So the solution to being able to play music to Sonos via my iPhone is to not use my iPhone. Helpful.

I have no patience or sympathy for a company that sells a product intended to perform a service it does not perform. They spend millions on ads featuring people playing music from their iPhones.

I would appreciate constructive answers rather than belittling the question. A Sonos setup is not a small investment and it should work as advertised. Period.

Then I'd recommend that you speak directly with Apple.

No one is terribly pleased by this. Certainly not us, the customers of Sonos, but while I'm sure it's high on Sonos' list of things to get fixed, they have to rely on Apple to revert the change that was made which affects the way that Sonos, and oddly pretty much only Sonos works.

Until Apple is willing to work with Sonos on a fix (which they may, or may not have an interest in doing, since Sonos competes directly with HomePods), it seemed appropriate to provide potential solutions so that you can continue your life in the meantime.

And if you own an AirPlay 2 Sonos receiving device, such as a Beam, Sonos One, or PLAY:5 gen 2, you can always AirPlay 2 your content to your Sonos system, using Apple's own music player, which (oddly) isn't affected by the change that Apple made.

Yes, you're right. It sucks. I don't know of a single person who likes the situation, including me. But it exists. We've just offered you potential alternatives until such time as Apple deigns to acknowledge the issue.

Phones make terrible web servers, as their operating systems are not designed to be "always on" (else batteries would last no time at all).

To "play from this device" your phone needs to host a web server as a background task. Apple decided to not allow this, in order to keep their phones more useful for every other purpose.

In the past there were various hacks that apps used to keep running in the background, but over time those hacks worked less and less well. The "play from this device" feature is severely effected by this.

IMHO Sonos should just delete the feature. Events in the last year have shown that they are fearless these days in deleting features, so they should add this to the list (cr100, desktop app features, direct Sonosnet etc).

Since this feature no longer functions and will not until a 3rd party - Apple - decides it will, Sonos needs to clearly state that music can not be played directly from your iPhone on its site, in their ads and in stores. Because there has been no official notification and I guarantee if I went to any AV store today, or the flagship store in NY and said I keep all of my music stored on my iPhone and want to be able to play it through Sonos wherever I am, they would sell me as much as I could carry.

Hi melrose80, in case you haven't seen any of the solutions, here's a bit of background which gets you there. There is a specific issue we're looking into where audio playing to Sonos from an iOS device under the "On this iPhone" section may cut out if there are any non-Sonos AirPlay enabled devices on the network and the phone goes to sleep. If you haven't had a chance to see it, there's a message here on our support page about the specific feature.

To fix the issue, disabling AirPlay on any non-Sonos devices will fix the problem. Also, there's a good page here from one of our community members talking about a solution that worked for him. I've seen it work for other systems, but not necessarily all of them.

For playing music your personal music library, it has always been best to use a local storage like your computer or a NAS drive so the phone isn't the main hub of music. That way you can start playing music on Sonos at any time and leave the house, taking your phone, and music will keep on playing unless you stopped it. Also, if your phone's battery dies, you won't have to worry about the music stopping.

It's also worth noting that all newer Sonos players are also AirPlay 2 compatible. So if you have a Play:5 gen2, Playbase, Beam, Sonos One, or Sonos Amp, you can use your iPhone to play music directly to Sonos using AirPlay 2. You can even group multiple Sonos players together, all playing the one stream you've sent to one of those devices. This means if you go to the store and buy a Sonos player, odds are you'll be getting one with AirPlay 2 compatibility (the Playbar is one of the only ones still sold that isn't compatible).

IMHO Sonos should just delete the feature. Events in the last year have shown that they are fearless these days in deleting features, so they should add this to the list (cr100, desktop app features, direct Sonosnet etc).

Wow I totally called this a month ago, huh.

Hi, I have an old Sonos speaker and 4 Sonos controllers connected to in-wall speakers in several rooms: kitchen, dining room, living room and porch. None are Airplay enabled. I understand I can add a Airplay enabled Sonos device and group several speakers (and controllers?) so that I can play music using AirPlay.

Can you AirPlay enable a controller and if so, how?

Assuming you can group controllers to AirPlay enable all of them, can you adjust the volume of each speaker/controller separately in the group? This is important...for example, if my husband is asleep in the bedroom and I’m in the living room, I’d want to turn the volume all the way down in the bedroom via the app.

I’m just trying to figure out the best way to AirPlay enable my old Sonos system so that I don’t have a full rip and replace.

If I interpret what you’ve said correctly, you have your music as downloads only, and all stored on your phone? If so, a free Google Play Music account might be a solution for you without the need to buy another speaker.

But otherwise, Grouped speakers play the same music in sync to all speakers. The volume can be controlled as a group, but additionally you have independent control of each speaker - and can even mute one or more. That might be better to avoid accidentally increasing the group volume and waking your Sleeping Beauty.