Sonos is killing a family Xmas tradition.

There are some alternative options for your family to play your collection of holiday music on your Sonos speakers:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/play-music-stored-on-your-android-device

@ssmieja,
There’s no reason why a compatible UPnP/DLNA Player App can’t be used to play tracks, stored on an Android device, to a Sonos player.

I believe the chart below helps show why a Play:1 can be used with S2 and an old Connect:Amp can’t due to its memory limitation.

@GuitarSuperstar 

Couple of things. I have an S1 system at the main house and S2 at my condo. No Bluetooth or line-in equipment at the condo so that means sharing my collection with the cloud, or buying a nas device or buying a new piece of Sonos equipment. Also the time involved takes away from my holiday. 

@Ken_Griffiths 

Interesting chart.  My amp is the later model but lack of storage makes sense.  

It seems clear that this was at least one of the reasons for the S1/S2 split - memory/storage and processing power were likely limiting the product development and smart-home features. It’s reasonable to think that’s why some features and controller hardware were obsoleted like CR100/200.

The chart (curtesy of @controlav) shows just how much the new players now have, by comparison, and the new 802.11AC WiFi adapters are much more robust and faster aswell. The S2 system here is as solid as a rock. I now run all on WiFi instead of SonosNet and most devices (except Home Theatre products) are using the much faster 5Ghz band. I can’t recall the last audio interruption here that some users occasionally talk about and the Plume WiFi mesh setup I use around the Home, works well with Sonos and all the other (smart/non-smart) network devices about the place.

I still have an old S1 system going strong (touch wood), but really happy to have upgraded to S2. 

I have some music not on streaming services as well.  I opened a free iBroadcast account, uploaded my music, and linked the service to my SONOS account.  It was easy, free, and I can now listen to my dad’s old vinyl anywhere I want on any device.  It works very well for us.

Yes, I use this service too, but pay their small monthly subscription to get the higher bitrate.. in my case I’ve uploaded my library at 320 AAC and that provides reasonable playback - it took nearly two weeks though to upload 25k+ tracks, so it’s rather slow to get everything up-to their cloud. Works great though with Sonos. I’m surprised Sonos do not provide this type of service themselves and do away with local storage playback altogether (oooOOh…I’m being controversial!!🤔)

My library was not nearly that large, just my dad’s and granddad’s vintage Christmas albums because of the childhood memories. I also had some tracks recorded by my two sons that I like to listen to occasionally.  I started the process, and they were all available in just a few hours.

You state “First the S1/S2 debacle which was no more than an attempt to push voice assistants everywhere and kill the analog hole.” I think voice control also works on S1 devices (they were there before the S1/S2 split), so that could not have been the reason.

Of course it’s not the reason.  Voice control started October 2017.  The S1/S2 split was almost 3 years later, in August 2020.  Care to try again OP?

Please @ssmieja - there are already hundreds of posts on here proposing ridiculous and false theories about the S1/S2 split.  We really didn’t need another such post*   The units that could only continue under S1 had only 32MB of RAM.  It was actually a miracle that Sonos kept these working with later devices, as the system’s capabilities expanded, for as long as they did.

• Perhaps I should give you credit, though, for finding a new angle: Sonos as the Grinch Who Stole Christmas.