Question

Chromecast in S2 / Honest timeline for Chromecast

F
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Hello,

Agenda: Chromecast support on Sonos.

I’ve been reading through this forum about this topic, and basically can’t find any clear answer - apart from ‘we’ll pass this request to developers’.

As an iPhone user I know I can use Airplay however I don’t find it a very good solution; I get a phone call, music stops, walk out the house, music stops, not to mention my battery constantly draining.

Additionally as good (in its own way) the Sonos app is, many services don’t give their respective platforms enough attention, rather spending it on their native apps - many of which support Chromecast.
e.g. I often find myself on Soundcloud native iOS app, find a set I want to listen, but then have to go into Sonos’s app and search it again. Similar use case with YouTube music, and Youtube in general, need to use Airplay.

So I’d like to ask:

  • Are there are Sonos developers here who could comment on the challenges of implementing Chromecast and what the potential timeline of release (if its realistically possible) looks like.
  • Otherwise, would be very keen to hear from other users what the technical/business limitations for not implementing it.
  • Would the S2 operating system surprise us all with it?

Cheers,

FP.

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34 replies

M
Userlevel 1
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Google built the Chromecast. So yes, they define the standard. Not complying to the standard won't get you Chromecast support. This is fully on Sonos to comply to get it working.

As I stated before, I doubt disagreement on the API is the reason there’s no chromecast/Sonos integration.

Correct. SONOS would have to implement some Google hardware which Google would have to want to give to them. I personally don’t see this happening. the only solution I see is the one I just detailed.

Acquire
Userlevel 1

Google built the Chromecast. So yes, they define the standard. Not complying to the standard won't get you Chromecast support. This is fully on Sonos to comply to get it working.

As I stated before, I doubt disagreement on the API is the reason there’s no chromecast/Sonos integration.

Correct. SONOS would have to implement some Google hardware which Google would have to want to give to them. I personally don’t see this happening. the only solution I see is the one I just detailed.

Plenty of high quality wireless speakers, Harman Kardon and bang and olufsen for example (you can find more on Google's Chromecast built in site), have Chromecast built in. This is a Sonos only problem.  Sonos hasn't said why, but for some reason they don't want to support it or maybe they can't due to their own past technical decisions.  They still only support 2.4ghz WiFi and even then older versions of it.

M
Userlevel 1
Badge +2

Google built the Chromecast. So yes, they define the standard. Not complying to the standard won't get you Chromecast support. This is fully on Sonos to comply to get it working.

As I stated before, I doubt disagreement on the API is the reason there’s no chromecast/Sonos integration.

Correct. SONOS would have to implement some Google hardware which Google would have to want to give to them. I personally don’t see this happening. the only solution I see is the one I just detailed.

Plenty of high quality wireless speakers, Harman Kardon and bang and olufsen for example (you can find more on Google's Chromecast built in site), have Chromecast built in. This is a Sonos only problem.  Sonos hasn't said why, but for some reason they don't want to support it or maybe they can't due to their own past technical decisions.  They still only support 2.4ghz WiFi and even then older versions of it.

Correct. They all implement a hardware solution from Google. So SONOS would have to implement the same/similar hardware solution. What is unclear to me is whether SONOS wants to implement someone else’s hardware (and what it means for licensing agreements since SONOS is not just a speaker, it is a streamer as well), whether Google sees themselves as a SONOS replacement, and any issues in between.

 

Honestly, I think Chromecast native on SONOS will never materialize. There are workarounds like the one I mentioned above that frankly work pretty well.

M
Userlevel 1
Badge +2

Google built the Chromecast. So yes, they define the standard. Not complying to the standard won't get you Chromecast support. This is fully on Sonos to comply to get it working.

As I stated before, I doubt disagreement on the API is the reason there’s no chromecast/Sonos integration.

Yeah. Pretty sure this has nothing to do with implementation technicalities. From what I have seen, all Chromecast built-in devices either run the Android OS or have some form of hardware built in to do Chromecasting. Like I said before, I would bet the issue has more to do with licensing and fees than anything else, but obviously I don’t know.

M
Userlevel 1
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Actually, I am fairly confident that Chromecast will not be part of SONOS at all. The reason is that S2 includes a casting mechanism similar to Chromecast. Call it “SONOScast”  :grimacing::grinning:

 

If you run the TIDAL app on an iOS device, you will now see your SONOS speakers as a possible output. This is not Airplay (which is also available) but true casting. I checked this by running TIDAL, playing to the SONOS speaker, then killing the TIDAL app: the music did not stop.

 

So this is good because it also allows SONOS to tailor the casting code to accomodate high res or things the Chromecast cost might not support. But it’s a bummer because all apps will have to add SONOScast support. Right now it looks like only TIDAL has it (I also use Qobuz, SoundCloud, Bandcamp, and MixCloud).

melvimbe

Actually, I am fairly confident that Chromecast will not be part of SONOS at all. The reason is that S2 includes a casting mechanism similar to Chromecast. Call it “SONOScast”  :grimacing::grinning:

 

 

Are you sure about this?  Specifically something called ‘SONOScast’?  googling the word references a 3rd party app.  Casting to Sonos speakers from various streaming apps has been around from quite sometime now.  I’ve seen and used casting from Amazon, Google, Pandora, and SXM before, but never heard it referred to as Sonoscast.  

 

My understanding was that the various servious just used the existing Sonos APIs to transfer playback from a device to Sonos speakers on your WiFi network, or through the cloud when applicable.

Danny
M
Userlevel 1
Badge +2

Actually, I am fairly confident that Chromecast will not be part of SONOS at all. The reason is that S2 includes a casting mechanism similar to Chromecast. Call it “SONOScast”  :grimacing::grinning:

 

Are you sure about this?  Specifically something called ‘SONOScast’?  googling the word references a 3rd party app.  Casting to Sonos speakers from various streaming apps has been around from quite sometime now.  I’ve seen and used casting from Amazon, Google, Pandora, and SXM before, but never heard it referred to as Sonoscast.  

 

My understanding was that the various servious just used the existing Sonos APIs to transfer playback from a device to Sonos speakers on your WiFi network, or through the cloud when applicable.

I gave it the name SONOScast, I don’t know what the official name is. I had never noticed it on TIDAL, and I can tell you that SoundCloud, MixCloud, Bandcamp, or Qobuz do not support this right now. It might be it was always there on TIDAL and I never noticed it.

 

The only API I am aware of to send music to a SONOS speaker is what Roon is using - but in that case you’re constantly pushing music to the SONOS speaker rather than the SONOS speaker fetching the data itself with the iOS app acting as a remote. This is not the same as playing any of these streams through the SONOS app obviously.

G

I don’t think I’m the only one here in this situation, but I’ve basically frozen my Sonos purchase plans now for years because of the lack of google assistance support.  Waited forever for it to show up (didn’t purchase any more during this time), and when it finally does, you can’t cast to them, and you can’t group them with other speakers like you can with other google capable speakers.  Best you can do now (which is better than before) is have home assistant use one of your sonos speakers and have it use a sonos group for some multi room audio.

Considering that they seem to have implemented everything for Amazon and Apple and for what ever reason Google is a third class citizen, and it’s what I’m primarily using, that means moving forward I’m not really all that interested in buying more Sono’s products.  Simply because of years of what appears to be an afterthought for support.

I had already bought 6 speakers prior to this.  And not a single one in the last few years.  But I would’ve.  I’m paused now because I don’t want to reinvest if I don’t have to, the longer this goes on the more apparent it becomes I will have to.  Sonos isn’t that great of a product that they can’t be replaced by something that does have broader connected home support.

Just something for the bean counters to consider.

M
Userlevel 1
Badge +2

I don’t think I’m the only one here in this situation, but I’ve basically frozen my Sonos purchase plans now for years because of the lack of google assistance support.  Waited forever for it to show up (didn’t purchase any more during this time), and when it finally does, you can’t cast to them, and you can’t group them with other speakers like you can with other google capable speakers.  Best you can do now (which is better than before) is have home assistant use one of your sonos speakers and have it use a sonos group for some multi room audio.

Considering that they seem to have implemented everything for Amazon and Apple and for what ever reason Google is a third class citizen, and it’s what I’m primarily using, that means moving forward I’m not really all that interested in buying more Sono’s products.  Simply because of years of what appears to be an afterthought for support.

I had already bought 6 speakers prior to this.  And not a single one in the last few years.  But I would’ve.  I’m paused now because I don’t want to reinvest if I don’t have to, the longer this goes on the more apparent it becomes I will have to.  Sonos isn’t that great of a product that they can’t be replaced by something that does have broader connected home support.

Just something for the bean counters to consider.

I’ll give you my perspective:

I don’t think SONOS will ever incorporate Chromecast - this is a mixture of Google wanting to keep the tech close to it (all Chromecast built in solutions use either special hardware or run Android OS). There is likely some licensing/fee issue with Chromecast as well. 

SOLUTION: Get a Chromecast Audio Dongle and attach it to one of the devices that can take an input (Arc, Amp, Port, etc). This works just fine.

 

SONOS seems to be implementing it’s own Chromecast equivalent - it is available in the TIDAL app. I would expect other apps to add it eventually. Spotify has Spotify Connect which was the first of these casting technologies and works well.

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