time for Chromecast

Chromecast has existed for 7 years now, and Sonos is doing just fine.  

I don't think so. Have you followed their market share? Plus the legal battles. Definitely they are not doing fine. But that is not the point. 

The point is they are missing Chromecast for android users, which potentially can gain them a lot more business. And I am one of them.

Yes, I follow their market share, the real question is:  Do you?  Because their market share just doubled over 1st quarter last year.  

Yes. Doubled in 2020.

https://voicebot.ai/2020/04/28/amazon-smart-speaker-market-share-falls-to-53-in-2019-with-google-the-biggest-beneficiary-rising-to-31-sonos-also-moves-up/

Legal battles?  You mean the ones where Sonos is suing others for stealing their tech?  

Maybe, maybe not.  Are you sure that Sonos wouldn’t be happy to work with Google on Chromecast, and it’s actually Google that’s preventing it from happening?

Are you all iOS users? Because I am an Android user, and not able to cast audio from my my android devices have been a big negative for me. No Chromecast, no bluetooth, there is no way to stream audio from an android device. 

I agreed with you all that sonos market share was increased, my point is that number would be significantly higher if Chromecast is added along with Airplay. You can google and see many people hesitated to buy Sonos products because they use Android phone. 

Never cared a hoot about streaming from my phone, and I'm an Android user.  That's just not the way I listen to music, and I'd rather keep my phone in its charger.

As I understand it, even without Chromecast it is possible to stream to Sonos from an Android phone, at least for music that is on the phone itself: https://support.sonos.com/s/article/3198?language=en_US

This means there is less of a need for Sonos to implement Chromecast, especially since some streaming services have there own way of streaming (i.e. Spotify Connect). I agree with the OP though: Chromecast would be a nice addition to Sonos.

That’s not true - you can cast to a Sonos device directly. As I write, I’m casting from my NAS to a Play 5 G1, with no Chromecast involved. I’m using an android phone and Hifi Cast as the casting software. If I held music on my phone, Hifi Cast could us it as a source.

I’m not saying that it’s ideal, but it is possible.

I think the difference here is that the OP wants to cast all audio, not music files, which can be done anyway using ‘on this mobile device’.  Maybe HiFi cast does this, but I doubt it?  The issue isn’t music on the phone, it is YouTube audio etc (I assume).

Having said that, I fundamentally disagree with the OP that this is a big issue for Sonos.  Sonos is designed as a whole home HiFi sysem - it will play music stored on a NAS, computer, Android mobile device, iOS mobile device (to Airplay 2 compatible speakers).  It will stream just about any piece of music that exists from a huge range of streaming services.  And internet radio.  This is plenty for the vast majority of Sonos users and potential users.

And if I really, really wanted to watch a YouTube video on my phone and hear the music on Sonos, I would pair the phone to my TV, and listen on my Playbar and / or speakers grouped to it.  But I never want to do that…..

So is Chromecast a game changer?  Not by a million miles.

Hadn’t thought of that, as I see Sonos as audio only...

However….

» So is Chromecast a game changer?  Not by a million miles.

I wouldn’t call it a game changer, but Chromecast is built into so many much cheaper devices these days that I don’t think that it’s an entirely unreasonable request considering the premium price for Sonos kit. If I were a new (and much younger) prospective purchaser then I’d expect something the price of Sonos to have all of the common communication methods built in - e.g. bluetooth, chromecast etc.