No Chromecast support - Returning product

  • 13 December 2020
  • 64 replies
  • 11754 views

1 lost customer. Sure there are others. I realize losing 1 person as a customer is no big deal. But I'm sure there are others. For the price - really should have most common streaming platforms. Billions of Android users. Lost opportunity. Anyways, just my 2 ¢

 


64 replies

 

My experience with Sonos in a nutshell

 

You resurrected a month old thread for this?

Userlevel 1

 

Quite embarassing

 

My experience with Sonos in a nutshell

Hi @hawki, Thanks for reaching out, and welcome to the community. We appreciate your feedback about having Chromecast with Sonos. We'll make sure that we'll pass this on to our engineering team as a feature request. Rest assured that we'll try our best to improve your experience with our Sonos products.

If you have other questions about your Sonos products and services, feel free to reach out.

It’s been over a year has this been passed to the engineering team yet?

 

‘Passed to the engineering team’ does not mean that the feature will be implemented.  It’s just an acknowledgement of the request.

Hi @hawki, Thanks for reaching out, and welcome to the community. We appreciate your feedback about having Chromecast with Sonos. We'll make sure that we'll pass this on to our engineering team as a feature request. Rest assured that we'll try our best to improve your experience with our Sonos products.

If you have other questions about your Sonos products and services, feel free to reach out.

It’s been over a year has this been passed to the engineering team yet?

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Thanks, I know, but its not a nice approach and not practical.

Worst for me as I use the Bean with a projector, connected to an Nvidia shield.

Sure, if I turn on all the devices and their watt absorbtion, I can do whatever I want.....but hey, does this make sense in 2021?

Quite embarassing

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Of course this is a work around, but you could connect a Chromecast to the TV and use the Beam to get the sound into your Sonos system by grouping other speakers to the Beam.

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I’m one of the many that on a side do loves Sonos products and services like sonos radio, but on the other side do hate them for not having Chromecast built in.

One main concern for me is to not being able to cast from a browser tab of my pc, for playing the audio of a Yuotube video or other more custom sources.

So while thinking to add surrond sound to my Beam, I’m evaluating to sell it and change the whole system for a better integrated and flexible one.

so bad

 

Spotify at least lets you cast to Sonos speakers via Spotify Connect (though I myself prefer the Sonos app). Maybe other music services do this too?

 

Yes, they do. You can cast from Amazon and Pandora, and I believe several others, with the services app.  No airplay 2 or chromecast required.  

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Spotify at least lets you cast to Sonos speakers via Spotify Connect (though I myself prefer the Sonos app). Maybe other music services do this too?

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If I am already listening to music on my phone I can quickly press the cast button and start casting to my Google speakers.

Instead I would have to switch to a different app (sonos)I find to be less nice to use. 

No one else bothers to use the sonos because instead of just casting from their phone to a shared device they have to have to download a separate app. Makes Sharing songs when visiting a hassle.

I can't even group my sonos with my other speakers so when I play music to "my whole house" the sonos sits there looking sad

When I play songs on my sonos people are impressed but never before has there been a product I love that I have more actively told people not to purchase because lack of casting makes it a chore to use.

 

 

 

I was looking at a Sonos Arc…

But without Chromecast audio build in it does not satisfy one of the most basic requirements I have.

As an Android user Airplay is no use to me. And with a relatively expensive product like this, I do not want to fiddle with all kinds of workarounds. It should just work, easily and reliably.

Too bad, it looked like an interesting quality product though.

 

Are you trying to use the Arc with a projector?  With the Arc (or other Sonos speaker attached to TV), I’m not quite seeing what chromecast really adds.  You can stream a ton of different audio services directly, and you can stream youtube and just about anything video through the TV and/or streaming box.  Is there some service you use that isn’t available through Sonos or a video streaming box?

I get the impression that much of the time, people’s desire for Chromecast is because they are not aware of what features Sonos actually has.  Maybe that’s not the case for you, but since you didn’t really say why chromecast is a basic requirement, can’t really tell if this is an actual issue or a misunderstanding.

 

 

I was looking at a Sonos Arc…

But without Chromecast audio build in it does not satisfy one of the most basic requirements I have.

As an Android user Airplay is no use to me. And with a relatively expensive product like this, I do not want to fiddle with all kinds of workarounds. It should just work, easily and reliably.

Too bad, it looked like an interesting quality product though.

 

You should be able to play Spotify Connect OK. What happens when you try? It would be worth powering off your router and Sonos, power the router back on fully,  then the Sonos.

But if you could describe in what way it isn't working and any error messages it would help.

Well, 4 months since your original post I meant :-)

 

So just now I decided to buy a Chromecast audio, only to realize Google doesn´t make them anymore -_-’

 

On top of that I seem to have problems with Spotify Connect playing on my Play: 5. No idea if the issue is with Sonos, with Spotify or my LAN.

This wouldn't be a huge problem if the Sonos S2 app was as useful as the Spotify app. As it stands I don't plan on buying any more Sonos products.

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. 

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

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.

@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.

@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?

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.

That's kind of my point. Be honest, explain. And be done with it. "Own" the reasoning and answer why it isn't there and stop being a PC politician.

I can understand your wanting that, but Sonos just don’t make this sort of comment about why they do or don’t do something, or what their plans are.  They seem to regard all such information as commercially sensitive.  Which is their right, really.  People can always vote with their wallets, as you have done.

I would just like them to say, ‘we have received several requests for this feature and I will pass on the continuing interest’.  I know that would still be a bit of a politician’s answer.

Incidentally, as an Android user who feels absolutely no need for Chromecast, I wonder what you want to do with it that you cannot do without it?

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.

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.

@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).

@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?

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..

@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.

 

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