‘On this Device’ for Android controller no longer supported

Don’t even bother.  One look at the post history explains everything. 

@RJSUK Why would you want to replace your speakers, when adding a Roam or an Era would suffice?

I don't want to replace my speakers - replacing them with Era speakers is one of Sonos' suggested "solutions". I have a Roam. Using a third party music app, Bluetoothing it to a Roam and then sending it to my Sonos One speakers does not suffice. I did not buy Sonos speakers to use a convoluted and user unfriendly process to playback my music over Bluetooth! I've tried it and it has all the drawbacks associated with Bluetooth, primarily a choppy reception even when my Pixel Pro 7 is right beside my Roam speaker!

Then why mention a solution to this would be spending “a grand”? If you really want to keep playing from your phone you have all things at home to do so?

If the Roam is not working for you did you ask Sonos for help?

Because using a convoluted workaround that involves a third party app and an additional Bluetooth speaker is NOT a solution. I invested in Sonos to get away from Bluetooth. The attitude of Sonos apologists is breathtaking at times!

For other folks who may be reading this thread….there is no need to replace all 4 of your current speakers.  You would only need 1 speaker that is bluetooth compatible as a separate room that you then group with the room that you want to play the audio too.  I think this may actually work better than replacing all your speakers with bluetooth compatible ones since you won’t have to reconnect bluetooth to different speakers every time.  The potential downside to this plan is if your existing 4 speakers are physically spread out to the point that where you would have to move the Roam to the room you want to play music in so that your phone is still in range of the Roam.  I’m not saying this is an ideal solution for everyone, but one option that should work for a lot of people.

As far as indication that local file storage option is going away because of exclusion for search, as I stated before, upgrading SMB seems to show that they are still invested in the feature.  However, it’s clear that fewer consumers are using and are interested in playing local files.  At some point, it may very well stop making sense for Sonos to keep chasing after these smaller market.  It also seems like, just my opinion only,  the people most interested in using this feature are less interested in buying new speakers.  The same people who looked at other cheaper, less commercial multiroom options. 

To be clear, I don’t think Sonos is going to drop local file option anytime in the next few years. I don’t think it costs them much to maintain and the tech doesn’t change much. I’m just saying the trend isn’t good for those who like the feature.  Perhaps there will be a revitalization and people will start wanting to store local files more often, similar to the vinyl trend.

@RJSUK why not use one of the third party apps mentioned in this thread that will play so Sonos without using Bluetooth?

I could but it would involve uploading 1.3TB of music to a provider. I just tried with YouTube Music and a Hi-Res 500MB FLAC album took about 15 minutes, meaning uploading the whole shebang would take about a month of uploading 24/7 and, unless I sign up for a paid subscription, it means low quality (lossy) playback, which alone makes it a non-starter. I'm obviously not an audiophile (if I was, I wouldn't be using Sonos) but I do want to listen to my music in the quality it is ripped/downloaded to (FLAC).

I emailed Sonos and they did reply. It basically reads like "we can't be bothered" anymore, sign up to a subscription service. The bit about carrying phones from room to room when using Wi-Fi is a laughable excuse, especially as they're trying to sell Bluetooth as a cutting edge-technology with their latest range of speakers.

The hardline Sonos apologists who are more interested in the technology than its ultimate end purpose are seemingly welcoming these changes with open arms but when I invested in Sonos, one of the big selling points was being able to access your own music from mobile devices and not being wholly reliant on subscriptions services or third party platforms.

@RJSUK you are misreading the earlier posts, there are apps that will read the data stored on your phone and stream it to a sonos device, without the need for any cloud storage.

I don't use the apps so cannot provide much detail but as I write I am streaming some music on my phone to a sonos play3 using hifi cast and using the sonos app I have grouped that play3 to a stereo pair of play1s

Let's be clear that it's not Goodel's fault that the "On this Device" function was removed!

The real reason is that Sonos won the patent dispute against Google. As a result, Google would have had to pay you the sum X or Google had to remove the affected patent disputes (functions) from their OS. So the whole thing is once again a question of the Sonos ecosystem.

Anyway, I'm out of Sonos, the closed ecosystem is not for me!