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is there going to be option to play music direct from android devices rather than have an external source?


is there going to be option to play music direct from android devices rather than have an external source?
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Best answer by Chris 27 August 2015, 04:21

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Do Sonos reps even look at these topics? It seems this discussion has become very heated and yet there has not been a peep out of them. Not even a word of comfort to know that they are at least looking into it. We Android users have gotten the cold shoulder from them and this is what has me most disturbed.
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Do Sonos reps even look at these topics? It seems this discussion has become very heated and yet there has not been a peep out of them. Not even a word of comfort to know that they are at least looking into it. We Android users have gotten the cold shoulder from them and this is what has me most disturbed.
Hello, We read and pass along all Ideas to our Product Development team. We have marked this Ideas as "Under Consideration". The definitions of what these statuses mean can be found here: https://ask.sonos.com/sonos/topics/idea_status_definitions
Do Sonos reps even look at these topics? It seems this discussion has become very heated and yet there has not been a peep out of them. Not even a word of comfort to know that they are at least looking into it. We Android users have gotten the cold shoulder from them and this is what has me most disturbed.
Thank you Gordon, but with all due respect i dont think your answer is going to please this community. This feature shouldnt be under consideration, it should be planned. It is a feature that a great percentage of your customers require. It should have been under development for a while now, and it should have been clear to a company such as yourselves that this feature would be needed. No more so due to the fact that your store demos suggest that this is already the case. I think what we really need to hear from you is why this is currently not possible. What limits the sonos system from direct play from a android device. This forum has identified several available android apps as a workaround to the solution we desire. But this just adds to the confusion. Please Gordon, if you cant offer us an answer on when we can expect this feature, please, tell us why. And it's worth pointing that i'm sure im not the only contributor of this forum that has been impressed with your new playbar, but until this feature is activated please consider my purchase of the Sonos Playbar................. "Under Consideration".
Very well said James! I'm still at work and had not had the opportunity to look at Gordon's response. I see you beat me to the punch but since I don't think I could have said it better myself - all I can say is thank you!
Absolutely need this! Leaving the Android / Google market out in the cold
Yes! I wouldn't see why iOS user get the love and Android users aren't! As stated above, Android has a whole bigger market share than iOS! (of course Sonos can set its limitations, but at least make it available) Thanks a lot in advance!
I agree, just purchase the system, and I was under the impression that the system had the ability to play music on your android. How disappointing when I found out it doesn't (EASILY). So, please consider this as a high priority enhancement for the system especially considering the cost of the product. You have a huge following, and the android community should be treated as a high priority as is the iPhone community.
I also agree. I just bought some components too, and I'm almost inclined to cancel the order without this feature. It's not made terribly clear that you can't stream from Android (esp. since you can still stream Apple). And yes, I'm aware that I could just pair a Bluetooth speaker to my phone, but that's at odds with the simple, flexible, intuitive universality of the system that Sonos is trying to promote. It appears to be a solid product with good word of mouth behind it, but if Sonos prefers large-scale success over relegation to a niche market, they should be inclusive of every way someone might want to use their system.
This should be "planned", not "under consideration". Your sales partners (John Lewis in the UK) already suggest that content can be streamed (and why would android be any different than a NAS or iDevice?), and so to find out that it can't when I install it is a bit annoying to say the least. I am a new Sonos customer and I am seriously considering getting a refund because it has been mis-sold to me. You need to either include the functionality as a priority or make sure your sales partners are not misrepresenting the products functionality. Failure to do so is reputation-damaging for Sonos. I'm certainly not going to be singing your praises.
Fully agree. This is not an option, for what is an expensive high end product. If Sonos don't do this, someone else will and in doing so will eat Sonos's lunch. The suggestion than BubbleUPNP and other products can achieve the same end is bogus. UPNP does not support multiple zones, does not allow a unified source interface, and requires that playlists favourites and everything else that makes Sonos different and useful, be dulpicated. "Under consideration" is marketing suicide!
This should be "planned", not "under consideration". Your sales partners (John Lewis in the UK) already suggest that content can be streamed (and why would android be any different than a NAS or iDevice?), and so to find out that it can't when I install it is a bit annoying to say the least. I am a new Sonos customer and I am seriously considering getting a refund because it has been mis-sold to me. You need to either include the functionality as a priority or make sure your sales partners are not misrepresenting the products functionality. Failure to do so is reputation-damaging for Sonos. I'm certainly not going to be singing your praises.
Although I fully agree this should be implemented, this is not as easy as it sounds. Like I stated earlier, iOS devices have AirPlay (Apple proprietary) which is designed to stream audio/video over network (and ofcourse is closed source) and NAS devices use NFS, SBM (CIFS). The problem there is that the Android kernel by stock has no SMB 'server' support. So, until Google/Android supports this SMB feature by stock OR develops an AirPlay competitor OR Sonos develops something like this (highly unlikely) OR use failed standards like UPnP, this will be close to impossible. In the meantime, you can root your Android device and set it up to be an SMB or CIFS server. To do so, root + install an app which makes your android device such a SMB server (like https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.funkyfresh.samba , or many others) and add it to your Sonos like you would any SMB server. Also, I would like to point out that, although I love the Android system AND Sonos (note that i'm not affiliated with Sonos in any way), you are requesting a feature that Android lacks and thus cannot be implemented by Sonos quickly. Please do not bash proper hardware and or software just because you do not have basic knowledge about it... EDIT: Like Victor says below, Sonos should at least update the status of this feature request to something else besides 'under consideration'. Indeed this makes it sound like they don't care, which is lame, but, software development is done in stages. The TODO items (called backlog) have categories. Unfortunately, planned means that they know what to do and can roughly estimate how much work it is, which surely isn't the case about 'Android AirPlay' capabilities... There's just no better status then 'under consideration'. I would like to suggest to them they make a proper FAQ entry explaining the issue(s) and what they are planning to do about it.
Skifta - Bubble etc all use DLNA so why can't Sonos? - If Sonos can't do this then they need to make it very clear in store that you cannot "play from any source in the world" or whatever the saying is, and make it clear that they cannot play directly from Android as their displays suggest and what the staff are telling us - I have a system sitting here that was sold to me to do this exact thing - - - this is mis-selling and just damn lies - if I had known it didn't I would have bought a different system with bluetooth so I can play from my phone...
I Sent below to Sonos and got a rubbish standard reply below and a reply from Curry's who say they are passing it on. I went into store today and they are still displaying an Android phone apparently playing directly to the Play 3 and 5 although if you look at the display there are cables running from the base of the display - the staff still think it is playing directly from the phone. My Reply from Currys Dear , Thank you for your recent E-mail dated 8th March 2013. I apologise for the delay in responding. Thank you for bringing this to our attention, I can see that it isn't entirely clear. There is extra information on the right hand side of the product description stating how you can connect and play with the Playbar. However I have passed this on to our ECommerce team, for them to enquire further as although our information is given to us by Sonos, they do sometimes make mistakes. I hope this helps. Kind regards, My Reply from Sonos Dear , I will create three separate Feature Requests for the products you are requesting. However, here are the answers to your questions: You cannot play directly from Android. You cannot add Google Music to Sonos. You cannot add Amazon Cloud player for EU customers. We can assure you, that there have been multiple requests for the products described by you and our product management is aware of it. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. Thanks and regards, Richard K Sonos Support My E-Mail to Sonos...... Hi, For your information I have just sent this e-mail to the main Sonos supplier in the Uk - it is misleading - Curry's in the uk have demonstration units set up that are "playing music directly from the Android phone connected" I bought my system with this purpose in mind and find it cannot actually do this and the web listing quotes "Listen to all the music on earth - from any source” this is also incorrect as you cannot play direct from Android, Google Music, Amazon Cloud Player - these three sources are where my music is - please advise how i play from these sources. Thanks My E-Mail to Currys,,,,,,, Hi Just to let you know of a misleading part of the listing for the Sonos equipment you sell – on the listing it says and I quote “Listen to all the music on earth - from any source” can you clarify what this means please as I have a Sonos system and I bought it as your in store team said that the demonstration unit was playing directly from the Android phone that was connected to it – this is not so you cannot play directly from any Android phone to a Sonos system you also cannot play from Google Music or Amazon Cloud Music so this is three sources that you cannot play from that I know of – the listing is misleading, You may want to contact Sonos and clarify with them what this is supposed to mean. I have put a link below for the PlayBar so you can see the misleading Listing. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/sonos-playbar-wireless-soundbar-21291143-pdt.html?intcmpid=display~RR~TV%2c+DVD+%26+Blu-ray~21291143 Sincerely
I concur that this is frustrating to not have, together with Google Music and Cloud Player (EU) not being available. A partial solution is to have a Bluetooth receiver plugged in to one unit's line-in, and group that with other rooms in the house. Total cost: $10-15. The drawback to this is Bluetooth range and also the phone/tablet needing to stay in one room. Probably fine for listening to audiobooks and whole playlists at a time, but not if wanting to change tracks whilst in other rooms or to receive important calls on your phone..
I support this. Playing from a nexus would be great.
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I think the difficult part for direct streaming from android is there are so many OSs (jelly bean, ice cream sandwich, gingerbread, and etc). And within that, there are so many variations...I'm an android user, but makes sense direct streaming only works with ios6 so far.
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I think the difficult part for direct streaming from android is there are so many OSs (jelly bean, ice cream sandwich, gingerbread, and etc). And within that, there are so many variations...I'm an android user, but makes sense direct streaming only works with ios6 so far.
Bubble UPnP runs perfectly as an alternative way to stream music to SONOS, so having several Android versions is a moot point.
I think the difficult part for direct streaming from android is there are so many OSs (jelly bean, ice cream sandwich, gingerbread, and etc). And within that, there are so many variations...I'm an android user, but makes sense direct streaming only works with ios6 so far.
Bubble UPnP is a push technology, it only needs to 'push' the audio to UPnP rendering device. Sonos uses pull technology, it has to see the Android as an SMB share and 'pull' the file from it. I'm not sure what the hold up with this is, but to keep comparing it to Bubble UPnP shows a lack of knowledge of the underlying design, for the two are not comparable.
I think the difficult part for direct streaming from android is there are so many OSs (jelly bean, ice cream sandwich, gingerbread, and etc). And within that, there are so many variations...I'm an android user, but makes sense direct streaming only works with ios6 so far.
Bubble is far from a perfect alternative, unless you can explain how Bubble can stream to multiple zones. I have several much less expensive devices that can play using UPnP - Sonos promises a unified interface playing to synchonised players. How difficult would it be for Sonos to write or licence an SMB type server to embed in its controller software, which is only mounted when the controller on an android device is active.
In the last 2 hours I've learnt that Sonos doesn't support Google Music and Android streaming... This is pure fail Sonos! Also to the people who say Android is starting to dominate the market place, I think you'll find Android have had a much greater market share than iOS for a number of years (due to the number of devices). I find it a strange business strategy to actively develop for the iOS market, which also has a cheaper direct competitor in AirPlay and ignore the biggest untapped market in Android... Up your game Sonos!
In the last 2 hours I've learnt that Sonos doesn't support Google Music and Android streaming... This is pure fail Sonos! Also to the people who say Android is starting to dominate the market place, I think you'll find Android have had a much greater market share than iOS for a number of years (due to the number of devices). I find it a strange business strategy to actively develop for the iOS market, which also has a cheaper direct competitor in AirPlay and ignore the biggest untapped market in Android... Up your game Sonos!
Actually, Sonos has implemented a few things on Android that are not available on iOS, like widgets, alerts, and direct connection to Sonosnet. So it is not as if they are ignoring Android in order to "actively develop" for iOS. It seems it is more a limitation in developers tools/functionality than a bias towards either OS.
Shame on you SONOS! How could you forget the millions of Android users. Please work on an uprgraded application that would let you stream music from any Android device asap. I was thinking of buying more components to increase my SONOS system but I will post.po.ne these plans until further notice
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Hello everyone, This topic is now marked as Planned. Sonos is currently developing a direct wireless playback feature for Android similar to iTunes Wireless Playback for iOS. As with all our new features, we will not have a public timeframe for the release until it's fully ready. Thank you for your support.
awesome news! thank you
Happy to hear this news. I can't wait!
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Nice, so this summer we will be able to stream music from our Android devices. Good to see.