Googled killed the Home Max after only 3 years on the market. That doesn’t really stack up well with Sonos speakers that traditionally have longer lives than that.  The issue regarding support and compaitbility with other speakers in the system is still yet to be seen.  Yes, Home Max still works with other Google speakers and is supported, but Sonos has never stopped support of devices immediately after they stopped selling them either.  The old speakers you’re referring to stopped selling years before Max even went on sale, and didn’t get relegated to S1 until Spring 2020.  Your comparison is just silly.  Wait 5 years, and if the Home Max is compatible with speakers releases in 2025, then you might have a point.  

Because it doesn’t support chromecast?  Not sure how you’re drawing this conclusion.

@jmak Bluetooth really isn't good news for AV audio anyway. To get decent audio for your movies you will need to use a switch of some sort. 

For example, if you had a Playbar then you would need an HDMI switch / audio extractor with optical out. 

Your Chromecast  TV device would go in the switch input, run HDMI from switch to the projector and optical from switch to Playbar. 

Yes it means some cabling, unless you use wireless HDMI,  and I am not sure how reliable that is.

@ralx . Your suggestion that Sonos sucks for Android users presumably implies that Airplay is vital for most iOS users of Sonos? Despite the fact that until a couple of years ago there was no Airplay on Sonos? Of course, iOS users do need Airplay to play music stored on their phones, for which Android users have 'on this device '.

You seem to believe that casting device audio is important to lots of Sonos' target market. As an Android user I can play Internet radio, stream my choice of music and other audio services, play my own music stored on a network drive or my phone. With my Arc I can listen to surround sound with Atmos. The sound quality is excellent and that is important to me.  SonosNet makes my large system rock solid.  Yet according to you, Sonos sucks because it doesn't have Chromecast (for which I have no use)?

I shall let others be the judge of how sensible that opinion is.

I wish you luck with your new system, which clearly meets your needs better than Sonos. I much prefer what Sonos offers. Each to their own.  I do not think that the system you prefer is inferior because it doesn't give me the best mix of features for my needs. So why do you think Sonos 'sucks' because it doesn't suit you?

Not having chromecast is irritating. Seeing complain about that is not. Thanks.

Pathetic response and customer service from Sonos. I too am looking for alternatives to Sonos. In this connected world we live in...Sonos is an island!

The only reason why I and other friends of me not buying Sonos is the lack of the Chromcast support! This is really a shame dor many years

@John B

I shall let others be the judge of how sensible that opinion is.

I don't get what you're not seeing here. I remember the days when audiophiles use to spit in disgust at any music playback without lossless compression. The idea that you can play high fidelity music wirelessly was almost blasphemy a decade ago. 

Times change. People have children. And less patience. My daughter of 4yrs old knows how to cast audio and video from my Android phone. Which works great with my TV but nope not with the Bluetooth less Sonos. 

My main objections to your opinion is that 1) Sonos somehow never prioritised casting or grouping via Google Assistant 2) That it doesn't have a (good enough) purpose. 

The fact is that the promised this feature and haven't delivered (yet). And for those in the back piping up about Google dropping products, this is not about that so shut up. As long as Android phones still have an ecosystem, this feature will be relèvent for the Hub/Nest/Home whatever you want to call it. 

Sonos said initially that it was a Google issue when I first asked about even having any integration with the assistant. But it clearly isn't that much of an issue with them having released support. But having done this, why not go all the way and do it properly? It's just odd to only support integration part way when it isn't actually that difficult. So I have to ask myself, why have they chosen not to do it? Must be more to the story. 

As much as I like the speakers, having no Bluetooth and partial android implementation is annoying. Don't tell me "they never said they would provide this... People can choose with their wallet" blah blah blah. It's not good enough. 

It's a useful feature, the toolkit is there for software integration, it enhances your product and upgrading the software makes people want to buy more into the ecosystem (as I would have done instead of buying the Hub had proper Andorid support been offered). 

So I will vote with my wallet. But its a shame. 

​

@SIRRON . “The fact is that the promised this feature and haven't delivered (yet).”

To which feature are you referring please?  Please would you direct me to where that feature is promised?

TIA

I have 37 Google Home devices dotted around my home, got a used Play:1 for 5 bucks. Just found out that I’m not able to group Sonos with the Google for synchronised playback. Won’t buy another used Play:1 for 5 bucks ever again. Sonos, do you hear me? 

A used Play:1 for 5 bucks? Well, lucky you!

I’ll gladly take it if you have no further need for it! ;-)

I think there may be an element of irony in @Smilja 's post.

Oh. So what does @Smilja mean? No, seriously, I’d like to know!

Just to make things clear, I’m not trying to be ironic here. Or funny.

In case this is veering off too much from the actual subject, please let me know, thanks.

My reasons for suspecting - indeed knowing - that @Smilja is being ironic are the exaggerated figures, and the fact that @Smilja is a frequent and very knowledgeable contributor to this Forum.

@Smilja can correct me if I am mistaken, but I suspect that post really belongs on one of the “I can’t believe that you can’t sync Sonos and Google speakers, I am going to sell my Sonos speakers” threads, rather than here on a “I can’t believe Sonos doesn’t support Google Chromecast, I am going to sell my Sonos speakers” thread.

I first asked about Google assistant integration a few years ago after purchasing a Play:5. I was told by a Sonos representative that lack of integration was a Google issue and not a Sonos issue (at the time, Sonos had Alexa integration). But, I was told that this functionality was coming and so I left it for a couple of years.

As time passed, I’ve added connected products to my household because I see the benefit of accessibility, convenience and enjoyment from having an homologated system. Then, moving more towards voice-command, I must admit that I like this more natural way of accessing my media.

Yet the most expensive component with the premium sound can’t provide the basic common functionality of the assistant provide by the more inexpensive components? I can’t believe this is down to lack of ability to integrate on the software side because they’ve done it with Airplay.

The way I see it, Sonos wants to prioritise their ecosystem whereas there is a better platform out there that more people use. If Sonos completely integrated syncing with assistant or even provided a bluetooth platform to combine smart devices in the Sonos app, I would have gone for that. 

As it is, I just can’t use the speaker fully in the way I want. I won’t by another when there are alternatives offering more flexibility. 

@SIRRON I think you have misinterpreted Sonos’ intentions here.  Sonos has added voice control to its system.  It did so with Alexa first. then Google.  Some of the voice control functionality available on Amazon Echo devices is available on Sonos devices, but not all.  Sonos devices are Alexa-enabled, but they are not Echo devices.  Exactly the same situation applies to Google speakers.

Sonos speakers cannot play in sync with Alexa or Google speakers, and Sonos have never indicated that they ever will.

As far as I am aware, Sonos has promised absolutely nothing specific in features beyond what is currently available.

I am baffled by your reference to integration of Airplay.  This is in no sense integrated into Sonos.  Sonos have merely made their more recent speakers Airplay-compatible, and when one uses Airplay to play to Sonos, one is barely using the Sonos system at all.

Yes, Sonos wants to promote its ecosystem.  Of course it does - Sonos IS its ecosystem.  Some additional functionality has been provided - such as Airplay and the ability to play from many music service apps.  But if you think anything else has been promised, think again.

My 2 cents for what it's worth.. I hate that theres partial support for Google ecosystem but not all the way. 

I can set up my Arc as a speaker for Google Home to play music on and even use GA on the Arc itself.

But without Cast support, I effectively lose all the unique capabilities provided by a music app. The browse functionality within the Sonos app is horrible. E.g. Tidal provides many forms of unique catalogs (master, 360 audio etc) but I won't be able to look for them in the Sonos app. 

Even if there are valid reasons to avoid implementing the cast protocol (which I really doubt there is) at the very least implement a Share to Sonos capability so I can browse in the respective app and send it to Sonos app for playback. 

My only workaround today is to browse in an app, add the music/playlist to my collection, switch over to Sonos and browse to my collection and play there. 

You don't take anything away from users by implementing cast but you open up a whole world of possibilities by it. As someone else mentioned on this thread, sometimes we want the convenience provided by Cast (for our kids / guests) even if it comes at the expense of quality.. Sometimes..

@devindran .  The Sonos app is a remote control for the Sonos system.  It is not a music player.

You can simply play directly from the Tidal app to Sonos speakers, instead of using the Sonos app - why aren’t you doing that?

@John B Tidal was probably a bad example as it does allow me to select the Sonos speakers as an output. But YouTube Music does not. That suggests to me that individual apps would have to build the functionality to output to Sonos instead of relying on the OS level APIs. 

Considering Sonos now supports AirPlay 2, I would expect Google Cast to be a no brainer decision as well regardless of how widely it would be used (also given the fact they are supporting Google Assistant APIs).

Clearly it isn't a no-brainer or Sonos would have done it.  But no point going over the same arguments for the twentieth time.

I just tried to stream audio from YouTube and was shocked Sonos did not support Chromecast. Just bought 2 SL devices and was going to invest in their ecosystem but this won't happen now. I have several apps that just support Chromecast (and airplay). It's a shame because the SL really sounds good considering the size.

The concept of apps/services is just not a good idea. Sure, I can acces YouTube music that way (but not YouTube) but the interface is not at the same level as the native app. How are they ever going to keep up with the native app? I just tried YouTube music with Chromecast and that's exactly what I would have wanted with Sonos.

The Sonos app is inferior to native apps though, and I don't even see it as a replacement most of the time. Why not support a standard that would allow you to use all your favourite apps the way they were intended? Not to mention it will be challenging for Sonos to keep updating their app to include new services in the future. They don't have to if they support airplay and Chromecast.

I bought a couple ofSonos One speakers and was going to build out my system but I'm now looking elsewhere. This is just such a glaring omission for a speaker at this price point.

@Mixtur - bottom line - Sonos don’t think lack of Chromecast is a glaring omission, or there is some other reason why they won’t or can’t implement it.  They aren’t stupid, whatever some on this thread might think.  The price reflects the whole offering, with loads of great features (perhaps including some they have had time for because they didn’t bother with Chromecast).  No price guarantees any particular feature.

YouTube Music is new.  Its predecessor GPM could be cast direct from the native app to Sonos.  You can use the native apps to play Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Music and Tidal on Sonos.  That is a pretty big chunk of the market.  And that applies to Android and Apple controller devices.  I shall be surprised if YTM doesn’t follow.

Gutted but just returned my newly bought Sonos One today because I wouldn’t be able to group it with my other ‘Chromecast enabled’ speakers. Loved the design and sound but lacking this feature was a deal breaker for me. Will order a HK citation one instead.

Four months later, still no chromecast support. Please get it done!

4 months? Sonos have not thought it worth adding for as long as it has existed.