TuneIn no longer supported, custom urls no more?

Curious if any updates on this or anyone has found a work-around?  My fav thing to listen to is a custom internet station and it sucks I can no longer use my SONOS system to stream this.

Sorry what is the issue for you right now? Are you lacking TuneIn (Classic) on your system?

You would think the logical next step would be for Sonos to add custom URL stream input to their own APP rather than leaning on 3rd parties to do it for them.

Does seem very odd?.

Maybe down to not being able to monetize custom URLs..

Always the suspicion that Sonos is unable to monetize this, or monetize that. I suggest you read back through the thread.

The custom URLs have no TuneIn involvement at all. They’re stored directly in the system. The old TuneIn menu was merely a convenient place to put the UI at the time. If one adds a URL, favorites it into My Sonos, then removes the TuneIn service entirely the URL will continue to work fine.

Hopefully Sonos will find a new menu location for custom URLs. I only retain (old) TuneIn for this purpose as UK laws so unhelpfully block it from listing anything interesting. 

So is there any clarity yet about our ability to continue adding custom URLs in one way or another once these changes to TuneIn come into effect? My custom URLs are saved in my ‘Favourites’ as ‘TuneIn’ stations, even though they have nothing to do with TuneIn.

Maintaining the existing URLs is one thing, but certain stations change their details over time, and – sometimes one even discovers a new station so needing to add new feeds is crucial.

It would be great to have a native feature in SONOS to do this… without any app or subscription. This is actually a key feature for many people who were sold the ability to listen to internet radio.

I'm planning to buy a Sonos speaker. I would like to know if it is possible to add my own custom radios url at the moment of December 2023? Thanks!

Hi @Vladimir_G 

Yes - you need to install the (unsupported) legacy version of TuneIn to do so. I just verified this still works mere moments ago.

I hope this helps.

What is unsupported version? Is it old version one Tunein?

Hi @Vladimir_G 

TuneIn recently restructured how they do things, so there are two versions of the TuneIn service available for Sonos. They are clearly marked as old and new. In time, the new version will support manually adding station URLs via the TuneIn app, but as far as I am aware, does not yet.

I hope this helps.

From reading the upstream comments, I conclude the following.  Please tell me if I am wrong.

Custom URLs were a feature of an older version of TuneIn, but are no longer a feature of the most recent version.  The old TuneIn is unsupported and may be phased out at a later date.  However, the ability to store and play URLs is native Sonos functionality.  The old TuneIn app was only a convenient way to provide a UI to this functionality.  It could be provided by the Sonos control panel or by another app.

Custom URLs provide one of the last (if not the last) way to play Internet radio on a Sonos without a paid account.  And it is far from clear whether any funds paid to TuneIn (or similar) make it back to the content source (e.g., the public radio station or the like) in any meaningful way.  TuneIn is a directory service/aggregator after all, not a content provider.

It is unclear whether Sonos has the financial motivation to provide custom URLs, and quite possible that it has motivations to the contrary.

Ted Wobber
Ascoli Piceno, IT