Add Chromecast built-in Integration

Synch works perfectly fine with LMS in a proper network.  Sonos had an advantage once with its mesh network, but mesh wifi is a commodity now.  I’ve never really used multi-room, but here’s my LMS setup, with one copy of squeezelite driving the spectrum display in perfect synch with another driving my DAC’s coax digital input.  Too complex for technophobes, obviously, but a lot of fun for those of us who know how, and far more flexible than Sonos (though Sonos speakers work fine as LMS endpoints).  Much better UI, too, with the Material Skin (and the touchscreen, at left). 

Oh, and Chromecast integrates perfectly, too - optical in to the DAC from a Chromecast Audio, primarily controlled via the Material Skin, but from any other Chromecast-capable app, as well.  The DAC auto-switches between USB, Optical and Coax inputs with signal.

We're getting somwhat off topic here, but I'm sure LMS wasn't the problem, the hardware was (probably in combination with my network at the time of course - we're speaking 2010/2011 here). Duet that would lose contact with it's base, no sync with the Radio in the kitchen. Sonos/Sonosnet (which I'm into since 2018) works way better in my home.

I just wanted to comment that Sonos 100% needs to support Chromecast. It's ridiculous that it doesn't. These devices are expensive and frankly we shouldn't have to compromise fit a feature on much cheaper devices.

I think the issue is more on the Google side, than it is on the Sonos side. And I suspect that Google’s still a bit upset about the lawsuit for copyright infringement that they lost….

I’m going to buy a portable speaker for my wife’s birthday next month. No matter what I get for her, she ends up just playing music off YouTube. She won’t subscribe to YouTube premium. As I understand it, she would be unable to simply cast to her speaker. I would like to get her a speaker that I could integrate with a larger system. It would have ended up being a perfect gateway to get me to spend a stupid amount of money on Sonos gear. But it would have been a very inconsiderate gift, knowing she won’t be able to use it how she likes to.

As the OP of this thread said, they want the ability for guests and family members to simply cast to the device. This is basic support of Android that is very widely supported. Every “smart” TV made for the past decade supports casting. It’s much more ubiquitous globally than airplay. I would expect the same basic utility for my own guests.

I’m glad I took the time to search these forums as I was all but ready to buy into Sonos. I’ve seen you opine all over this forum, yet repeatedly fail to get that lack of generic casting support is a fundamental deficit of Sonos in supporting Android, which has 1.5 billion users (to Apple’s 1 billion.) 

https://www.sonos.com/en/shop/wireless-speakers

They have a whole line of wireless speakers. Your argument is there are cheaper speakers so they need to compete by locking out users? Makes no sense. I’m looking for the best product, not the cheapest. But I’ll probably end up getting a slightly less expensive speaker simply because it isn’t antagonistic to Android users.

@scotek . You are looking for a portable speaker on which your wife can play YouTube audio from her Android phone? How about the Sonos Roam?

Yes this is the product that I am considering. It would work with Bluetooth, but so would a lot of other speakers. I would probably go with the Ultimate Ears megaboom as it has twice the battery life, if I am going to commit to a BT-only option. 

We recently moved to a much larger house and I have lots of outside areas and other spaces that I would gladly place Sonos speakers, but if my wife or guests can’t interact with them intuitively, I may as well just have a traditional setup with an AMP that has several zones, and have her use some BT speakers in the meantime.

Bottom line, not being able to cast to the thing means Android users are much more limited in how they can interact with the device. Getting her to use different apps just because Sonos chooses to treat Android users as second class citizens is a big turnoff. 

Youtube music is supported on Sonos.  Google and Sonos obviously don’t have the best of relationships.  Google wasn’t very interested in allowing their voice assistant, Sonos is suing Google for stealing patents, and Google won’t allow their voice assistant on a device with other voice assistants installed.  Assuming that Google is fully on board with chromecast on Sonos speakers, it’s only Sonos that’s holding it back, doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

Not sure if it’s true anymore, but there was a time when Google did not allow casting of Youtube (video service) to any device that didn’t have display.  So you could cast to a TV, but not directly to a speaker.  Indeed, if you have TVs that have comcast (or devices connect via HDMI to the TV) than you could do that cast and have a Sonos Arc, Beam, Ray, or Amp connected to the TV to play that audio.  I rarely look at youtube on my phone, and rarer still want to cast that...but when I do, I’ve had no problem casting to the TV and hearing the audio over my Sonos speakers.

@scotek .  I can understand your point of view. and we all have our own priorities for our systems.  Neither of us is right or wrong.  

I think you are coming at this from the perspective of someone whose mindset is ‘single device sending audio to single speaker’.  Sonos is fundamentally designed to be multiroom, multi-source and multi controller, with an app that is a remote control for the system, not a music player.  It was not designed for all-audio casting.

For me, casting is a complete irrelevance.  I would never use it.  When i started with Sonos, Airplay wasn’t supported any more that Chromecast.  

I think it is rather paranoid and illogical of you to be talking of Sonos being “antagonistic to Android users’, but you are entitled to your opinion, and to your different priorities.

Edit: just as a historical note, the first native app that could be used with Sonos was Google Play Music, until Google scrapped it in favour of YTM.  But you could only use it on Android devices, not iOS.