Airplay 2 Support

Yes, it looks like devices that Sonos still currently sell such as PlayBar and Play:1 & Play:3 won't get Airplay 2.

If that is the case. They should come out with a unit that you can add to a group so airplay2 can find the connect connect amp and play1 and play3. Since they said groups with at least one sonos one will make that group airplay2 compatible. Seem like they have the tech already. Just take the brains of the Sonos one and package it as as hub for airplay2 amazon and Google assistance.

In the recent blog post by Sonos (https://blog.sonos.com/en/airplay2-coming/) they say that

Today, we’re confirming that newer Sonos speakers like Play:5, Playbase and Sonos One will support AirPlay 2, as will future Sonos products. When you group one of these Airplay-enabled speakers with older Sonos devices, you can bring AirPlay capabilities to your entire Sonos system.

From the way this is written, it seems like that you have to start by casting AirPlay 2 content to one of the newer speakers, then group with an old one. I was hoping they would do this a bit more automagically by having internal logic that said that "ok, the user selected this old play:3, so I will silently start the stream on this new Play:One speaker and forward it to this old one" or whatever. Of course, this could still be how it works out, but from the description it seems to be more... manual.

It sound like if you have the 5.1 setup with either the Sonos ones or the playbase. That whole group will play the airplay data once you pick that on iOS or Mac. No need to group after casting

If that is the case. They should come out with a unit that you can add to a group so airplay2 can find the connect connect amp and play1 and play3. Since they said groups with at least one sonos one will make that group airplay2 compatible. Seem like they have the tech already. Just take the brains of the Sonos one and package it as as hub for airplay2 amazon and Google assistance.
... Or just buy a Sonos ONE.


From the way this is written, it seems like that you have to start by casting AirPlay 2 content to one of the newer speakers, then group with an old one. I was hoping they would do this a bit more automagically by having internal logic that said that "ok, the user selected this old play:3, so I will silently start the stream on this new Play:One speaker and forward it to this old one" or whatever. Of course, this could still be how it works out, but from the description it seems to be more... manual.
This would indeed be magically.

Trying to work stuff out from various different threads here :D

Reading through this one, I think if I was sat in a room that didn't have an AP2 compatible speaker in it and I had to first send the stream to where the Sonos One is, then group the Sonos One with the speakers where I'm sat, then remove the Sonos One from that group, frankly I think I'll pass on the whole topic (which will save me money anyway by not buying the Sonos One in the first place).

There are two reasons for this. Firstly I find the whole method of moving music from one room to another by grouping / ungrouping to be very clunky as it is. Would be nice to be told I'm doing this wrong!! Secondly, if someone was in the room where the Sonos One is it would like scare the living cr*p out of them at best, at worst, interrupt what they might be doing (watching TV, having a conversation with someone etc.). Not a good idea.

So I'm still hoping a lot of it is transparent. Clearly I guess Sonos are not going to go into this level of detail yet which is a shame because I already missed the "2 for £300" promotion because I'm not prepared to buy something based on assumptions. It would be nice if either that offer reappears when AP2 comes out or a similar discount on 1 unit for a brief period. We can hope I guess.

No need to group, then ungroup to pass music room to room. Press Group on the source room or group, deselect non-destination room(s), select destination room(s), press Done. Easy peasy.

@jgatie - thanks for that info. I will check it out in the Sonos app later. It doesn't surprise me if I'm doing things in an overcomplicated manner. I don't think I've ever read any documentation or anything, I've only ever just prodded about until it worked.

Ironically, I'm not in the app right now because I'm listening to Apple Music over Airplay 1 to my pair of Gen 1 Play5's. I'd used AirConnect in the past but don't remember why I didn't stick with it. Most likely it was a stuttering mess? Not so this time however, I just put it on one of the VMs running in the background on my server and it's working like a charm. If it continues to then to be honest the hole AirPlay2 subject will become irrelevent to me since I don't really want it for the audio from video or anything, just music.

@jgatie - thanks for that info. I will check it out in the Sonos app later. It doesn't surprise me if I'm doing things in an overcomplicated manner. I don't think I've ever read any documentation or anything, I've only ever just prodded about until it worked.

Ironically, I'm not in the app right now because I'm listening to Apple Music over Airplay 1 to my pair of Gen 1 Play5's. I'd used AirConnect in the past but don't remember why I didn't stick with it. Most likely it was a stuttering mess? Not so this time however, I just put it on one of the VMs running in the background on my server and it's working like a charm. If it continues to then to be honest the hole AirPlay2 subject will become irrelevent to me since I don't really want it for the audio from video or anything, just music.

I use AirSonos which is a node.js package which bridges AirPlay and Sonos - it runs on my Raspberry Pi home automation server and works flawlessly - it's been running without issue for a couple of months now and offers exactly what Sonos should have offered years ago.

I remember using some variant of this when I first got my Sonos:1's (few years ago) and it didn't work properly, if at all, and from memory it was something to do with one of the audio CODECs which AirPlay uses not being supported.

It's disappointing to hear my three Play:1's and Connect:Amp won't get native AirPlay2 support but hey-ho, I've got a workaround which suits me fine.

I can't see it being too long until an AirPlay2 variant of something similar comes along - isn't AirPlay2 meant to be more "open" to aid wider adoption? Even if that's not the case, it won't take the geeks long to reverse-engineer the protocol and get it into a package.

If that is the case. They should come out with a unit that you can add to a group so airplay2 can find the connect connect amp and play1 and play3. Since they said groups with at least one sonos one will make that group airplay2 compatible. Seem like they have the tech already. Just take the brains of the Sonos one and package it as as hub for airplay2 amazon and Google assistance.
... Or just buy a Sonos ONE.


From the way this is written, it seems like that you have to start by casting AirPlay 2 content to one of the newer speakers, then group with an old one. I was hoping they would do this a bit more automagically by having internal logic that said that "ok, the user selected this old play:3, so I will silently start the stream on this new Play:One speaker and forward it to this old one" or whatever. Of course, this could still be how it works out, but from the description it seems to be more... manual.
This would indeed be magically.

Someone might not need another speaker. 😉