My speakers/app doesnt want to play music from my phone anymore

Playing from a computer is also always an option. You might want to try Plex.

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.*

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.

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.

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. 

Did 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.

Why would I want to have a bulky computer or laptop to access local files? For years now I have been able to simply use a smartphone, and Sonos happily supported this. Cal me cynical, but I do not believe that Sonos could not continue this functionality, I think that they didn’t want to. 

Maybe something like an SMB server app for your phone?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.webrox.landrive&hl=en_US&gl=US

I have started reading about such things. Thank you for your input, I appreciate it. I am just so disillusioned about Sonos that I am likely to sell off all my Sonos gear and find another path forward (and there are certainly options).

I have gone from being a huge fan of Sonos to this deeply disappointed and angry state. Yes first world problems for sure, but this is significant. Should I not find a way to use my local phone files with my Sonos products they are essentially bricks should I no longer chose to or be able to afford to subscribe to streaming services.

This really was a huge move on the part of Sonos. Not a good look to throw your loyal customers under the bus when you had a choice.

@MG1214 there are a number of android apps that will play music stored on your phone to a Sonos device. Admittedly you will still need the sonos app to group speakers together but  the basic functions volume, start stop are in the 3rd party app. Hi-Fi cast and bubbleUPnP come to mind.