Retired Sonos Staff

‘On this Device’ for Android controller no longer supported

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Starting May 23rd, 2023, the Sonos S1 and S2 controller for Android will no longer support the ‘On this Device’ feature for streaming locally saved audio files directly to Sonos devices.

As newer versions of mobile operating systems are released, it can sometimes change the way information is shared between devices, and this feature will no longer be compatible with newer versions of the Android operating system.

While this feature will no longer be available in the app, we know local audio files are important to our listeners and we’ll continue to offer other options to enjoy downloaded tracks on Sonos, including:

Streaming the catalog from a music service. There are more than 100 music services available on Sonos, many with several millions of songs.

See our article on 'Adding music services' to get started.

Some music services allow you to upload your own music files to a cloud storage service like YouTube Music for example, which allows for an upload of up to 100,000 files with a free account. Services that allow you to upload files to a cloud storage:

Streaming through music services or cloud storage allows you to access your music without your phone.

You can play music files from your Android device to a supported Sonos product using Bluetooth.

See more about 'Using Bluetooth on Sonos' here.

Setting up a Music Library share on a Network Attached Storage (NAS) drive. You’d need to have the drive available in your network when you want to play music, but your library would be easy to transfer to these devices, if it isn’t already on them.

See our article on 'Using a NAS drive with Sonos' to get started.

If you have a Sonos Play:5, Connect, Connect:Amp, Amp, Era 100 or Era 300 (with the Line-In dongle), you have a Sonos player with a Line-In connection. Using that Line-In, you can play music directly from any device connected to it, to any player around the house.

See more about 'Using the Line-In on Sonos' here.

We'll continue to support everyone through this change, and will help you through the necessary steps to keep listening to your favorite tracks on Sonos.

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SleepyRobot

Trending Lyricist III

@106rallye

Aha. No i don't have that many music files, somewhere between 5 and 6000 i expect.

I was happy that i didn't need to have my PC on all the time anymore. I actually don’t use it that much and because of energysavings.

Maybe i should look into a NAS for my files and switch to a personal laptop (now i use mostly my worklaptop). If only Sonos supported Chrome cast, it would solve this problem right away!

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SleepyRobot

Trending Lyricist III

To add, i just tested connecting to Bluetooth on my Roam and grouping the arc with it and it works! 😀

For now i think i'll just use this solution.

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StuartM

Enthusiast I

Why remove the feature for all Android users so soon when many will remain on version 12 for a while yet? Coupled with the NAS issues it makes the system much less useful for users who don't use streaming services or create their own music.

controlav

Lead Maestro

Happened to the iOS version many years ago, for similar reasons. Phones make terrible http servers.

Author of the leading independent Sonos apps for Android, MacOS, iOS, Windows and Xbox.

buzz

Grand Maestro

Some routers will accept a USB memory stick that can be used as a NAS drive. In this case, very little extra power is needed.

B

bahi58

Lyricist II

Why should the functionality be removed from all Android users so quickly when many will continue to use version 12 for some time? Users who don't utilise streaming services or compose their own music will find the system to be considerably less helpful when combined with the NAS concerns.

melvimbe

Why should the functionality be removed from all Android users so quickly when many will continue to use version 12 for some time? Users who don't utilise streaming services or compose their own music will find the system to be considerably less helpful when combined with the NAS concerns.

I don’t think Sonos wants to maintain multiple versions of the Sonos app depending on which version of android they have. Even if they wrote a single version that conditionally checked which version of android you have to enable/disable certain functionality, that’s a lot of coding, testing, and supporting.

I suspect Sonos has a good idea of the volume of users who currently use this functionality and what speakers/options they have to play their audio files in a different way. Some may not even be aware of the other methods and may find their system more useful after changing things up.

Danny

V

v_b

Lyricist I

Starting May 23rd, 2023, the Sonos S1 and S2 controller for Android will no longer support the ‘On this Device’ feature for streaming locally saved audio files directly to Sonos devices.

As newer versions of mobile operating systems are released, it can sometimes change the way information is shared between devices, and this feature will no longer be compatible with newer versions of the Android operating system.

Can you elaborate on what changes on the Android platform that makes it impossible to do this in future releases?

What about other (on-device) music-playing apps, are they affected as well? If not, could there be a workaround by means of an DLNA player as App?

While this feature will no longer be available in the app, we know local audio files are important to our listeners and we’ll continue to offer other options to enjoy downloaded tracks on Sonos, including:

Streaming the catalog from a music service. There are more than 100 music services available on Sonos, many with several millions of songs.

See our article on 'Adding music services' to get started.

Some music services allow you to upload your own music files to a cloud storage service like YouTube Music for example, which allows for an upload of up to 100,000 files with a free account. Services that allow you to upload files to a cloud storage:

Streaming through music services or cloud storage allows you to access your music without your phone.

Even though it might not be understandable for California-based developers and marketing people: there is still a market for people that expect systems to work even when no internet connection is available. (This is also related to the annoying fact that there is basically no free radio service in the Sonos ecosystem that does NOT play annoying advertisements when starting a new stream).

So it would be much appreciated to keep such offline functionalities with as little additional devices as possible (i.e. NO additional NAS as data source).

You can play music files from your Android device to a supported Sonos product using Bluetooth.

See more about 'Using Bluetooth on Sonos' here.

Setting up a Music Library share on a Network Attached Storage (NAS) drive. You’d need to have the drive available in your network when you want to play music, but your library would be easy to transfer to these devices, if it isn’t already on them.

See our article on 'Using a NAS drive with Sonos' to get started.

If you have a Sonos Play:5, Connect, Connect:Amp, Amp, Era 100 or Era 300 (with the Line-In dongle), you have a Sonos player with a Line-In connection. Using that Line-In, you can play music directly from any device connected to it, to any player around the house.

See more about 'Using the Line-In on Sonos' here.

We'll continue to support everyone through this change, and will help you through the necessary steps to keep listening to your favorite tracks on Sonos.

… additional device, additional power consumption - that’s not how we should argue in an era where people are adviced to safe energy wherever possible.

melvimbe

Can you elaborate on what changes on the Android platform that makes it impossible to do this in future releases?

What about other (on-device) music-playing apps, are they affected as well? If not, could there be a workaround by means of an DLNA player as App?

I doubt Sonos wants to get into a technical discussion with customers about how the feature used to work, what exactly changed, who is to blame, what Sonos could possible due to re-enable, their management decisions to not pursue that, etc.

Even though it might not be understandable for California-based developers and marketing people: there is still a market for people that expect systems to work even when no internet connection is available. (This is also related to the annoying fact that there is basically no free radio service in the Sonos ecosystem that does NOT play annoying advertisements when starting a new stream).

I doubt Sonos is basing this decision on random guesses or polling their friends about about how people are using their speakers and what sort of content they are playing. But it is understandable if you don’t want to use a cloud service and opt for one of the many other options.

So it would be much appreciated to keep such offline functionalities with as little additional devices as possible (i.e. NO additional NAS as data source).

… additional device, additional power consumption - that’s not how we should argue in an era where people are adviced to safe energy wherever possible.

What sort of additional energy consumption are you thinking that using bluetooth or a wired connection are going to have. I can understand if you don’t currently own a Sonos speaker with bluetooth or aux input and don’t have a router with USB port to stick a thumb drive into, but I’m not aware that these methods would draw more power than sending audio from android to device to Sonos speaker over WiFi.

Danny

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Duke2k

Lyricist II

To be honest this is really bad news. The Alternative ways are basically requiring additional work. The rationale saying there are changes.... does not really justify stopping something that works. Also to blame android for this is just an attempt to keep the shotstorm low. Android is not changing the way wifi works. 😒

My speakers don't have BT and I will not be able to play music spontaneously from my network.

Really bad move.

Does anyone know if this is automatically disabled or only if I update the app from the 23rd?

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