Question

When will Sonos support Airplay?

  • 2 December 2015
  • 37 replies
  • 4041 views

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Hi Sonos,
Please somebody tell us, if and when airplay support will be added. It is definitely possible to do as some people have already written open source code to do it. But it is a hassle to use as I need to run a program on my mac to be able to stream music directly to my sonos speakers from my music app on my iPhone or iTunes. I can already now stream my AppleMusic from the cloud , I can stream DRM music. With airplay we just don't need to worry about your controller limitations.

Why can't you guys add official support,so I don't need to remember to start the service on my mac?
You are in the business of hardware, let Apple and others be in the business of music software.
I am now Apple Music subscriber and most of my music is in the cloud. and all the speakers I bought over $4000 USD would be worthless to me because none of my new music is accessible via official channels.
Thank god for the open source project that makes is available and simple. So it is doable even by people who do not privy to your internals. It should be very easy for official Sonos developers.

Also I don't like your player interface! It is NOT as good as Apple or Spotify. Please Please can you just add support for AirPlay?

And if NOT, please tell me WHY NOT?

Regards,

-D.

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37 replies

Userlevel 3
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To answer the question posed by this thread, Sonos (most likely) won't be incorporating AirPlay anytime soon.
But at least for Mac users, there's a 3rd party solution that's working fine right now.

To be helpful, here are the relevant links:

http://sonoair.mihosoft.eu/
https://twitter.com/mihosoft/status/662399840614268928
http://sonoair.mihosoft.eu/releases/experimental/SonoAir.zip

Enjoy!
Thanks all for your answers. In terms of my question re:delay, it seems like airsonos (at least the raspberry version I tested) is consistently about 2-3 secs behind the rest of the airplay speakers out.

The Airplay+Connect:Amp/Play 5 method is about 100ms uncompressed, probably half a second compressed.

Through my apartment I do hear the difference no matter what, but it's usable at least for a while whilst I replace my last airplay speakers with Sonos equivalents (but it's quite a budget...!)

Last little thing though - for some reason, using the "official" route, whilst the Connect:Amp plays the music fine, if I group speakers, the grouped speakers (i.e., not the ones connected to the amp) tend to drop out. Clearly, Airplay is not the issue as the speakers connected to the Amp keep playing; also, there are no dropouts when I use other sources (Apple Music, radio, etc)... is there anything different that I should be aware of, that is due to the fact that I'm using the line in source?

(next I'll try to plug the connect via Ethernet, but am worried it may not help much as the play 1's I'm connecting to are wireless anyway...)

Thanks!
Airplay sucks up wifi bandwidth, because the stream goes from your router to the iDevice, back to the router, and finally, to the Airport Express. It is almost certainly the cause of your dropouts, which are a well documented issue for Airplay. Sonos uses its own mesh network (unless you have it set to wifi mode, not recommended for more than a node or two), so is far more immune to dropouts.
Thanks; it's clearly not AirPlay though as the AirPlay connection is wired and also, the Connect Amp doesn't shut the sound. However I do have wifi mode enabled, maybe I'll try to go for mesh - thanks!
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air-sonos works again! this is the best solution. I like what Sonos did with giving me ability to stream from Apple Music, but it is not enough.
I can't "like" songs from Sonos app and I can't add them to "myMusic" and I can't really explore. Also, still can't play apple music files already downloaded to my iPhone or iMac because sonos controller can't do it. it can ONLY stream from AppleMusic directly.

If they had added all features I just described, I would not need air-sonos. Otherwise, it is the best and only solution that really allows to consume music in a way that is suitable for me.
Userlevel 2
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Now since Sonos speakers are sold directly in apple stores maybe there is a chance of getting airplay to work directly on the speakers.
They must have discussed this at least...

https://9to5mac.com/2016/09/26/apple-sonos/
They auto download to my phone/iPad, so I want to be able to play them direct from my phone. I'm not going to update my iTunes twice a day just to listen to a 30 minute podcast once. I'm also not going to buy an apple router just for that one function 192.168.1.1
Userlevel 5
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They auto download to my phone/iPad, so I want to be able to play them direct from my phone. I'm not going to update my iTunes twice a day just to listen to a 30 minute podcast once. I'm also not going to buy an apple router just for that one function 192.168.1.1

Do you have a question?
Userlevel 7
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They auto download to my phone/iPad, so I want to be able to play them direct from my phone. I'm not going to update my iTunes twice a day just to listen to a 30 minute podcast once. I'm also not going to buy an apple router just for that one function 192.168.1.1

Do you have a question?


He's been posting virtually the same stuff. Looks to be a phishing site to spoof people into entering their router credentials.
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Hey Fofer, are you still around on this forum?
Thanks for alerting me to SonoAir: No, I'm not the creator of SonoAir, either. Just a happy user, of a cool piece of software, that nicely fills an annoying gap. And I'm happy to share information about it with others who'd equally appreciate it. :)
Since I have recently bought two Play:1's and hearing that they can't be made to work with with Airplay, I'm looking for an alternative... SonoAir?
I currently use Audiobridge and find that it cuts out frequently on my setup.
I'd be interested in other's experiences with hacks to that Sonos-Airplay issue.
Userlevel 1
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Try this https://github.com/philippe44/AirConnect
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Cheers Philippe.