Airplay 2 on Sonos

  • 2 January 2018
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71 replies

I have a gut feeling that Audible support will be via casting to Sonos from the Audible app, like Spotify, Google, Pandora and Tidal do now, in addition to via Alexa. The Amazon Music app quietly added ChromeCast support to Android not long ago; it’s also a likely candidate for Sonos Direct Control.
I would anticipate Airplay 2 arriving with HomePod since that’s a touted feature
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Airplay 2 arriving to Apple with Homepod - but as far as to Sonos. I would expect Sonos launch about 3 months after Apple Launch.
Sounds about right. Although you would hope Sonos has been working on this already. #wishfulthinking?
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All we do know is that if you have a Sonos One it will receive airplay 2. Of course if the Sonos One receives the signal then you can play it to any Sonos unit.

That is as far as we know.

There is possibility play:5 gen2 and Playbase May also serve that receiving role.
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If all you have is a play:1 I doubt it Alone will work with airplay2. You are most likely goi g to need to also get a Sonos One.
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Can you setup a Sonos One without setting up Alexa? It seems that so many people have problems with the Alexa integration.
For interest, I have a Playbar, a Sub and a pair on Play 1’s as a 5.1 room setup. A pair of Play 1’s in another room as a stereo pair and 3 other rooms all with a Play 1 in. I just need 1 more speaker to finish my setup - looking like it might have to be a Sonos One to give me the ability to Airplay to my system.
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No need to configure Alexa, it’s optional.

Airplay 2 is a way off yet, Apple needs to get it working first but it’s happening.
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IOS 11.3 beta was released and has airplay 2 support so it looks like it Apple will release it with iOS 11.3
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IOS 11.3 beta was released and has airplay 2 support so it looks like it Apple will release it with iOS 11.3

Just for anyone reading this Apple only released Airplay 2 yesterday 24th Jan 2018 in Beta for iOS devices. It has been in the TVOs beta a little while now.

As Pereo says.. it will be in iOS 11.3
Exciting times ahead! So if Airplay 2 will work the second gen of sonos devices....does that mean that we could probably pair it with appletv too?

In theory you will indeed be able to send the Audio from an Apple TV to Sonos, in fact I am really hoping this will work.



That works perfectly, I'm doing it right now. But you loose some of the "ease of use" as with AirPlay 2 on the speakers you can control everything directly within iOS using AirPlay 2. By using AirPlay 2 to the Apple TV and from there do the grouping towards your other Sonos-speakers you will have the same situation as with AirPlay 1 today where you have to start AirPlay and then head to the Sonos-app and do all the grouping and volume controls etc..

With AirPlay 2 embedded in the speakers you simply do and control everything directly using AirPlay no need for the Sonos-app. With the Apple TV you also get the same situation with 2x volume controls as the Apple TV is incapable of knowing or controlling your Sonos Play Bar / Play Base volume so you still end up with having one volume control for AirPlay and another for the speaker itself.
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Hi RamGuy, thanks for chiming in. As you say its Airplay 2 that I am really getting excited about.
Okay okay.... with all this air play 2 talk... will this integrate into home kit? What’s the thought in this?

My hope is to create scenes with music along with lights, window Shades etc...
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All we do know is that if you have a Sonos One it will receive airplay 2. Of course if the Sonos One receives the signal then you can play it to any Sonos unit.

That is as far as we know.

There is possibility play:5 gen2 and Playbase May also serve that receiving role.


So the Airplay 2 signal will go into one modern Sonos product and then be converted and re-broadcasted to the old ones?

I wonder if mixing the protocols like that will be a future proof concept? Especially for those using Sonos-Net... I'm guessing there could be performance issues with the older models.

I also wonder how they deal with buffering. I saw from a presentation that Airplay 2 demands a buffering capability of several minutes, if they place that buffer in the Airplay2-receiving speaker only then it's no real buffering. Just a few speculations, we'll see pretty soon. In my experience from Z90, the Sonos buffering is not always big enough.
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You can't expect Sonos or any other tech company to announce anything before Apple confirms official launch date.

Sonos also are vague when it comes to new features and timescales so don't expect any further info until near launch.
AirPlay 2 has been removed from iOS 11.3 Beta. Oops. Sounds like Apple is finding it a bit more difficult than they thought to fix AirPlay.

https://9to5mac.com/2018/02/20/airplay-2-removed-11-3-beta/


It's back with iOS 11.4 Beta though
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Sonos can work on it - but they can't put it out for beta testing to Sonos beta testers without it being released (not beta) on Apple. And with Sonos beta cycles I wouldn't expect within next 4 months.
Well, apparently it’s settled - AirPlay 2 is only for the newer touch control products: One, Play:5 (2nd Gen) and Playbase.

The remainder old products can be coupled with these new ones, but that means they will not be independently available as AirPlay speakers not available on the Home app. That’s a bummer.

I wonder why, if, apparently, even the Airport Express from 2012 seems to be supported (judging from the reports on the latest iOS Betas).

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/4/25/17283114/sonos-apple-airplay-2-support-details#comments
I don’t like this at all.. I’ve got 2 Play:1’s a Playbar and a Sub. Worth of more than €1700,-. To hear that they won’t support Airplay 2 is really sh*t..

I can understand that the play:1 won’t support it, but the Playbar?!
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Maybe the will take the brains of the Sonos one. And make a unit that you can add to groups to make that group airplay2 compatible. They have the tech already.
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I can understand the frustration about the Playbar but it was released in 2013 so it's hardly surprising. Comparing that with Airport Express, which is an Apple product, is harsh. It may come in handy but generally I loathe the Apple Music App with a passion so can't seem myself using it much.
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Just as we expected. Good to hear the play:5 will work (previously they only committed that the Sonos One would work).

I’m not sure they would ever bother making a stand alone box for this. The box would be almost the price of a Sonos One so why bother.

Airport express was made for airplay so not sure why would be surprise it could handle when Older Sonos units (not made for airplay) would not. Wouldn’t expect anything else.

Be interesting to test airplay 2 as I always felt airplay 1 was a bit of.a disaster when it came to streaming. Looking forward to native support to try out.
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I doubt a box will be as much as a Sonos one. All you need is the chipset from the one or play5. You don't even need to give it some ablities. It might cast in the range of a boost.

But it is Sonos so you never know their plans
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I just read the German blog. And the older speakers just do not have the processing power to support airplay2. That is normal
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I've come here to check. The blog that I received an email to did not specifically say that Play5 needs to be Gen 2. Although it is kind of implied by newer devices. Are we sure that Play5 Gen 1 are not supported? I have 2 of them and just bought a Play3 Gen 2 (oops!). Also got a connect amp but that's by the by,

I can't complain (well I could :D) I've had most of this stuff since 2010 and it's all working well still.

So given I've got no idea how Airplay 2 works (and little experience of Airplay 1 frankly), could someone clarify for me please?

I have a stereo pair of P5:G1 in my office which is an outbuilding that shares the same wired network as my other Sonos speakers. It works just the same as if they were in the main house. If I were to add a Play One somewhere in the house to get Airplay 2 support into the system, can I then be sat in my office and stream to my office speakers from my iPhone? If so, is it a simple case of "send this to the office" or do I have to jump through awkward steps to get there?

Of course, if the Sonos system properly supported Apple Music then I wouldn't need to but I'm becoming more and more aware of the fact that I only ever use Apple Music through my Sonos and therefore Apple is never learning what I like and what I don't. It seems to very much a one way stream with no feedback. Hence I'd like to move to using the Apple Music app on my phone and send the output to the Sonos pair in my office. (My office is not a public space incidentally, it's a home office)