I keep hearing different things on this. If I have a PlayBar with two Sonos One's as surrounds, will the group be AirPlay 2 enabled?
The official blog post (https://blog.sonos.com/en/airplay2-coming/) says that "When you group one of these Airplay-enabled speakers with older Sonos devices, you can bring AirPlay capabilities to your entire Sonos system."
However, I keep hearing that since the PlayBar is the master in the 5.1, that the Sonos One's set as surrounds lose their AirPlay ability. Why would these be handled differently than another group? Is there a way to overcome this?
Could someone please confirm if this is the case?
AirPlay 2 with Sonos PlayBar 5.1 and two Sonos One's as surrounds
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The same limitation applies. Because no matter the source, the Playbar is the master unit because it is the only one capable of decoding and distributing individual channels to each surround and the Sub. The One(s) would still have to decode the stream and send it to the Playbar, while simultaneously playing the stream sent back.
Plus, one must ask: If it were possible, what would Sonos' motivation be to not allow it? It isn't to drive sales for the Beam, because they enabled Airplay 2 on the Playbase, which has been out for a couple years.
Plus, one must ask: If it were possible, what would Sonos' motivation be to not allow it? It isn't to drive sales for the Beam, because they enabled Airplay 2 on the Playbase, which has been out for a couple years.
The Sonos Ones do support airplay on their own, however they are no longer stand alone speakers and are now tied to the playbar as part of a surround setup. All content is sent to the bar and then out to the Ones and since the bar doesn't support airplay you cannot use it.
That is purely based on a hardware limitation, which the play one also shares.
In order to enable airplay with your current setup you would need to unbond the Ones each time (plus trueplay).
So the more practical option would be to have a separate Sonos one, which you could group with that setup to enable airplay when you are listening to music.
If you specifically stated that you were connecting to a playbar and were still told it was compatible then that is misinformation and you should file a complaint. I always recommend doing ones own research as sales people often don't give accurate information.
That is purely based on a hardware limitation, which the play one also shares.
In order to enable airplay with your current setup you would need to unbond the Ones each time (plus trueplay).
So the more practical option would be to have a separate Sonos one, which you could group with that setup to enable airplay when you are listening to music.
If you specifically stated that you were connecting to a playbar and were still told it was compatible then that is misinformation and you should file a complaint. I always recommend doing ones own research as sales people often don't give accurate information.
So just to be clear, since others seem to be in a similar position. I have a playbar connected to my TV, which is bonded in a surrround sound system with two Sonos Ones and a sub. If I buy an extra Sonos One (which I would put in an adjacent room) and group that with the surround system, then I can AirPlay 2 to the group?
Yes, once you group it with the extra One it would enable airplay for the group
Fortunately, this issue may have just become far less important. Amazon has announced that Alexa will support Apple Music from the week of 17 December 2018. Presumably, although it is not yet completely confirmed, I will be able to ask Alexa on my Sonos Ones to play tunes from Apple Music. https://blog.aboutamazon.com/devices/alexa-play-bebe-rexha-on-apple-music
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