Will Sonos support Google Cast for Audio?

If Cast for Audio takes off and proves eventually to be highly functional, I would (sadly) ditch my Sonos kit and turn elsewhere. In the meantime, I will hold off recommending Sonos to anyone until the picture becomes clearer.

Oops, missed out an important bit from the first sentence. What I meant to say was:

If Cast for Audio takes off and proves eventually to be highly functional, I would (sadly) ditch my Sonos kit and turn elsewhere if Sonos did not provide Cast for Audio support!

I got into Sonos only recently. I am slowly replacing my aging Squeezebox set up and after a failed attempt to use Olive One for that bought the first Play 5 to test the waters. Now I have a stereo pair and thinking of getting other rooms hooked up. But this announcement really caught me off-guard. I love my Chromecast, it is the dumbest but most versatile device I own and the promise of the same thing for audio is just mind blowing.

But let's don't go crazy on Sonos. WE haven't seen anything released yet. Knowing the versatility of the protocol, I can imagine all sorts of products being released. Home theatres, amplifiers, standalone speakers, car audio, and why not a standalone dongle that can be plugged into your Sonos input port similar to the way how chromecast works with any TV with HDMI input. It would be the best if we have native support but probably won't be essential.

And the native apps are cool, I often go into individual apps to subscribe to a playlist or the artist to make it available to play on Sonos, but having the app with all the services combined is also cool. How else would I be able to search multiple services at the same time, have the playlists combined of music from multiple sources, etc, etc. We are really spoiled for choice, and if Sonos gets onboard it would be great, but if not, I am pretty sure it is not going to be the end of the world. Chromecast is still lagging behind Apple TV and Roku so there is a market for everyone. Sonos was fulfilling all my music needs yesterday, today is not much different, only there is a promise that it can do so much more with not a lot of effort. Seems like we are becoming greedy here....

I got into Sonos only recently. I am slowly replacing my aging Squeezebox set up and after a failed attempt to use Olive One for that bought the first Play 5 to test the waters. Now I have a stereo pair and thinking of getting other rooms hooked up. But this announcement really caught me off-guard. I love my Chromecast, it is the dumbest but most versatile device I own and the promise of the same thing for audio is just mind blowing.

But let's don't go crazy on Sonos. WE haven't seen anything released yet. Knowing the versatility of the protocol, I can imagine all sorts of products being released. Home theatres, amplifiers, standalone speakers, car audio, and why not a standalone dongle that can be plugged into your Sonos input port similar to the way how chromecast works with any TV with HDMI input. It would be the best if we have native support but probably won't be essential.

And the native apps are cool, I often go into individual apps to subscribe to a playlist or the artist to make it available to play on Sonos, but having the app with all the services combined is also cool. How else would I be able to search multiple services at the same time, have the playlists combined of music from multiple sources, etc, etc. We are really spoiled for choice, and if Sonos gets onboard it would be great, but if not, I am pretty sure it is not going to be the end of the world. Chromecast is still lagging behind Apple TV and Roku so there is a market for everyone. Sonos was fulfilling all my music needs yesterday, today is not much different, only there is a promise that it can do so much more with not a lot of effort. Seems like we are becoming greedy here....
"Seems like we are becoming greedy here...."

You are not going to be popular here with the (extremely) vocal minority, but you are alright with me!

I'm not sure which way this will go. I can see that this is going to follow Chromecast in becoming a hit, but if Sonos join then aren't they becoming just another speaker manufacturer name on the supported list? If people are looking to buy a Google Cast Audio device, why would they choose Sonos other the raft of other speakers?

At the moment they have their own platform which is their USP, and a proprietary hardware system which is closed to other devices. If they join Cast Audio won't they lose all this? I'm just thinking out loud here, not stating any fact! I guess you will be able to mix and match Cast Audio speakers throughout your house, but only Sonos speakers (or LG, Denon etc) will do the multiroom trick in sync (for now, but Google could change this in the future)?

On the flip side, if they don't join and this does grow into a huge competitor the grass could be looking a lot greener on the other side to a lot of Sonos customers.

The current app is far from perfect (the native service app is always better), but as jabbba pointed out, it does bring all the supported services together (universal search, unified playlists etc), and it allows you to create multiple streams from one streaming account (spotify, deezer etc).

I'll be watching closely to see what happens as like many others I have invested heavily in Sonos, but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't join up.

I got into Sonos only recently. I am slowly replacing my aging Squeezebox set up and after a failed attempt to use Olive One for that bought the first Play 5 to test the waters. Now I have a stereo pair and thinking of getting other rooms hooked up. But this announcement really caught me off-guard. I love my Chromecast, it is the dumbest but most versatile device I own and the promise of the same thing for audio is just mind blowing.

But let's don't go crazy on Sonos. WE haven't seen anything released yet. Knowing the versatility of the protocol, I can imagine all sorts of products being released. Home theatres, amplifiers, standalone speakers, car audio, and why not a standalone dongle that can be plugged into your Sonos input port similar to the way how chromecast works with any TV with HDMI input. It would be the best if we have native support but probably won't be essential.

And the native apps are cool, I often go into individual apps to subscribe to a playlist or the artist to make it available to play on Sonos, but having the app with all the services combined is also cool. How else would I be able to search multiple services at the same time, have the playlists combined of music from multiple sources, etc, etc. We are really spoiled for choice, and if Sonos gets onboard it would be great, but if not, I am pretty sure it is not going to be the end of the world. Chromecast is still lagging behind Apple TV and Roku so there is a market for everyone. Sonos was fulfilling all my music needs yesterday, today is not much different, only there is a promise that it can do so much more with not a lot of effort. Seems like we are becoming greedy here....
@jabbba It's great Sonos is fulfilling your needs prior to this announcement and after.  I'd like support for this because I've basically had to change my audio listening behavior in order to "fit in" with how Sonos works.  Prior to Sonos, we played music on our laptop from random YouTube videos, websites of music artists that had their own built in player, GrooveShark, and local media on our phones.  I'd like to get back to listening to music how I'd like and sourced from wherever I'd like.

I don't see this request for Cast Audio support as greedy.  I'm probably biased.  I develop software which has the sole purpose to implement many different communications standards to neutralize them down to a standard api for our internal products to communicate through, so we can still "speak" many different technical languages with external systems.  In this day of interconnected devices and software (internet of things), it's becoming increasingly important to consumers that they can use whatever device they want with whatever software/app they want.  Our clients are constantly bringing new standards to us to support.  They have legitimate business need for such support, and we would likely lose contracts with them if we didn't add such support.

In this Business-to-Consumer model, I don't have the voting power to get a desired communication standard implemented the way our clients do in a Business-to-Business model.  The fact that I paid a lot of money for these devices still impassions me to speak up about my desires here, hoping attention will be focused on this request based on all the feedback we are generating here.  It's not greedy to desire more from my devices after the investment I made in them.

My main gripe after switching over the Sonos a month ago has been that I cannot simply play whatever is on my phone or laptop at the given moment.  We don't need bluetooth to do this.  Chromecast accepts instruction to play something via WiFi and can do so without a constant stream being "beamed" from the device requesting the playback.  Sonos does essentially the same thing, but in a less flexible manner, requiring existing accounts within music streaming services, etc.

I am in the same boat.

I wish to see how this develops as I still want to stream out my YouTube audio to my Play5 as well as trying to find a way to stream out my TV audio which is an LG smart TV but so far can only use headset output to the line in on the play 5 some say use a bluetooth device using a usb dongle any suggestions on that would welcomed as I cannot see how that will work.

I'd just be happy to be able to stream any Android app's audio to my Sonos system. E.g. I have a Play 1, but I can't send Netflix's audio to it.

At the moment the best solution seems to be to buy a bluetooth audio dongle and plug it into a Play 5, but that's dependent on both owning a Play 5, having the line-in free, and the Play 5 being within bluetooth range.

You could also root your Android device, and then use AllStream to send audio to an Airport Express (or use AirSonos https://github.com/stephen/airsonos). But I don't really want to root my phone.

For your TV I don't know any way you could wirelessly get sound out of your LG TV.  Line In on Play:5 with cable about it (if you had Playbar you could use Toslink cable to Playbar).

As far as YouTube app on your phone etc.  Yes you could put a Bluetooth dongle on the play:5 such as http://www.amazon.com/Avantree-Wireless-Bluetooth-Receiver-Transmitter/dp/B0085HOM4K#productDetails   Actually if you had 2 of these 1 could hook to TV and the other to the Play:5 if you really wanted to be able to send from TV via Bluetooth.

If you have apple iphone/ipad you want to stream youtube from you have the option of adding an Airport Express to the Play:5 in the same manner to add airplay ability http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&u...     There is also a hack called to give airplay ability to Sonos speakers via a server program on your home computer https://github.com/stephen/airsonos/releases

@All A new "idea" posting was made to request Google Cast Audio support for all the Sonos products in the following link.  Head over and "Like" the request to show we want it!

https://ask.sonos.com/sonos/topics/cast-audio-google-chromecast-for-audio