Why Remove the " On This Device " feature. No Bluetooth either. Can't play it at home when wifes using Spotify. Time to return this $1300 product.

The answer to your question is in the text you quoted: “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.”

Could you elaborate on your Spotify remark? Or is it you are using the same account on Spotify your wife uses? I believe that it is possible to use the same Spotify account to play different music on two Sonos spekaers when started form the Sonos app. Not quite sure about this.

I was listening to Her Spotify then she opened it up on her phone going home and the Sonos Arc stopped playing. Spotify only lets you use it on 1 device.

That's my impression too, but what I was trying to say was that the Sonos system counts as one device. So you can play music from the same Spotify account to different Sonos speakers - provided they are chosen from the Sonos app. Since your wife used het Spotify account outside of Sonos your use on Sonos stopped.

To listen to the music taht is on your phone try one of the possibilities mentioned above - iBroadcast seems nice.

Sorry for the typo's, by the way. There's no way to correct them in these kinds of posts…...

Nah in Spotify it only lets you choose 1 device I.e. Sonos(Home-Livingroom), Wife's Phone(at work), My Phone. Etc. this option only lets you choose one. But yeah guess I'll give iBroadcast a go

There are a number of Android apps that will play to Sonos devices. They use the fact that Sonos devices will accept UPnP /DLNA, In these Apps they will appear as a Media Renderers. The two I have had some recent limited use of are HI-Fi Cast and BubbleUpnP. They both work in a similar manner in that you choose a media source as your input,  a renderer as your output, choose your playlist and hit Play. Once you have chosen your output device you can use the Sonos App to group speakers together.

IRC they have difficulty with Stereo pairs but you can group a single speaker with a stereo pair and it works fine,

I am extremely annoyed that “Starting May 23rd, 2023, we’re removing the ability to play audio files directly to Sonos using the “On this device” menu in the Sonos app for Android “

Call me old fashioned but the whole point of having my own music collection is that I could play music wirelessly to my complete Sonos system (not just a portable bluetooth speaker) without having to stream some third party, possibly remixed version of a classic album that relies on an internet connection. If the developers can get it to work on an expensive and energy inefficient NAS drive surely it is possible to use storage on an android phone! I am not convinced whatsoever that the excuses made by the Sonos developers are true 

I can stream my entire personal music collection just fine.  I can also put them into playlists or alarms, and play them without my phone battery draining or even being on.  Been able to do it since before Android or iPhones were even invented.  

As to Sonos’ “excuse”, why else would they remove a feature some customers seem to benefit from?  Sonos doesn’t make a dime from any music services except their own, and their own isn’t a stream on demand service, it’s radio stations. 

@Billzy Your screen grab does not look like you are using the Sonos app. You can ad Spotify to the Sonos app like this: https://support.spotify.com/uk/article/spotify-on-sonos/

Then when you are both home and using the Sonos app for Spotify you can play different music on different speakers.

What a mess. I am a music producer that plays his own music on the giant Sonos home theater system I have at home every night when coming back from the studio ... And now suddenly, poof. Gone. 

None of my speakers support Bluetooth, none support Aux either. What an extremely sad development.

No, I do not want to upload all my daily in-development tracks to online streaming services, and no, I do not want to purchase a fileserver and also no I do not want to buy your new products anymore.

Conclusion: big fat F

All while my phone can't even upgrade to this newer version they're talking about.

My screen grab was from. The Spotify App. If I play from the sonos app. It'll play what's selected on Spotify.

If my wife decides to use the Spotify on her phone. It turns off what the Sonos speakers playing.

+ iBroadcast isn't free / requires premium/payment stuff to add songs to their system/something... still annoying that I have to download extra sht and do sooo much more just to add a play from my device for this sht.

If Sonos is all about streaming one can wonder why it doesn't offer some form of cloudstorage themselves. 

@SleepyRobot Why? There’s a lot of streaming services around, two of those are mentioned above.

@Billzy 

Last remark first: according to https://www.ibroadcast.com/premium/ you get better quality  as a premium client and will not get throttled if you are classified as a “heavy user”. There’s no payment for uploading. You’ll need to register and download a small program to your computer and upload the music to their servers. That’s not “sooo much more” - a couple of klicks, thats all. Adding iBroadcast to your music services in Sonos is a few taps. If you really do value your music so much, why not just do it.

I do not understand what you are saying about Spotify. All I am saying is you can both use the same account on different speakers when both laying from the the Sonos app. If one of you can’t (because you are away from home) Spotify will stop playing on the system that was already playing. If you already have a paid Spotify account - for a bit more you could get your own account on Spotify Duo.

Just remember: this is not going away. So if you want to keep listening to your music, you need to take steps.

I know its not going away which is why I've refunded it for $1200 & just bought a Samsung setup instead.

"New Search" does not show results for music stored on a NAS and you can longer play music stored on an Android device. An appalling deterioration of functionality. I bought into Sonos because it was a move away from lousy Bluetooth and now one of their "solutions" is to spend a grand on their Bluetooth enabled speakers.

How long until Sonos literally pulls the plug on your NAS?

Old search is still alive if I’m not mistaken. There’s no reason not to believe Sonos when they point at Google for taking this away. And spending “a grand”? The Era 100 is $249 last I looked…. The Roamis less expensive. And iBroadcast is free.

 A grand? Maybe you’re dealing with a different currency, but the Roam is only is only 180 USD.   And I don’t get why you’d be upset that bluetooth is offered by Sonos, since it’s not a requirement.

I do they will continue to support local file storage (NAS or computer) for quite some time, despite the fact that there isn’t as big a market for that feature as there used to be, since they recently upgraded the SMB standards for the feature.  Why do that if you planned on killing off the feature entirely?

Old search might still be available but it's a given that it will disappear at some stage. If I took Sonos' advice and downgraded to Bluetooth for streaming music from my Android devices, it would cost me a grand to replace my four existing Sonos One speakers with four Era 100 speakers. And iBroadcast is only free if you want to stream your music at 128kbps. It's just workarounds and people on these forums who actually advocate these downgrades only encourage Sonos to keep implementing them.

Yes, a grand - see previous post. I suppose that's one of the lame workarounds is it, Bluetooth my Android device music to my Roam and then pick it up on my Ones? Like going back to 2010! I bought Sonos precisely so I could move away from inferior Bluetooth. About NAS - I don't trust Sonos with anything and it wouldn't surprise me if they did drop support for it.

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!