Audible ?

Audible is a real issue for a lot of us system owners/users and at this time I not aware of any good solution. I've been on the "chuck all the sonos and start over" precipice for about a month now. My "workaround" is the obvious one: I output some device (phone, cpu, whatever) to the 3.5mm input in the back of a play5 I happen to have. I'm glad I have it but never intended this Play5 to be my "computer" speaker. If anyone knows about a good way to use audible through sonos that doesn't involve a 3.5mm cable, I'd love to know it.

I'm curious: I don't use Alexa but am a heavy amazon consumer... would a house filled with of those little alexa units (from AMAZON not SONOS) solve the Audible problem? I love love love my sonos sound but also audible functionality. Gonna be an interesting gift-giving season. Somebody I know might be getting a lot of used sonos stuff. I HOPE NOT. There has to be a better way.

Sonos let’s me access Podcasts on my phone. Please Sonos, add Audible as an options to play from my phone! How hard can that be? Seems to me if a well used app for the iPhone is listened to the. Sonos should be able to play it.
Thank you!!

Brought a play:1 7 months ago on the understanding that Audible support was returning in the summer. Now sold and being replaced with an echo. Hugely disappointing experience.

Last time I tried playing an audible book (3 weeks ago or something) on my new Sonos One, it said "audible is not supported on this device yet" or some such.
I tried it yesterday and it now it goes to play it, saying where I am in the book etc. but then fails to actually start playing the book.
Is this suppose to work yet or is it still being worked on by Sonos?

I perchased Sonos specificly for Audible use throughout my home. Of course I find out its not supported after unboxing and setting it all up.

It's a deal breaker for me if I can't get it to work. I contacted Sonos and the only solution they gave me was pluging in my phone with an AUX cord. Unfortunately none of the products I bought have that option... It also defeats the purpose of buying Sonos in the first place.

Apparantly they are "working" on making it compatable, it was suppose to come out this summer. They never followed through, which is disappointing. I researched a bit online and apparently Sonos has a reputation for not following through with promises like these. It's beyond disappointing to think it might never work. It seems to me with Alexa built in it should be able to work. It definetly seems like it tries! Alexa is able to find the book and give me information on it but never plays it. It gives me a little hope but I am still uncomfortable knowing Sono's reputation.

My boyfriend does work for Geeksquad and we are going to try and find a backwards way to make it work. If we figure it out I will lets you all know! Otherwise these go back to best buy! Which is so sad to me, especially after the hype associated with these products!

I think there are two different things here:
1. Make Audible available so you can add it as a "Service" into Sonos like you can many others (spotify, deezer etc). This is what was removed a couple of years (approx) ago - I have no idea when this is being added back in.
2. Make it available via Alexa on the new Sonos ONE (like it is already available on the Amazon Echo). I think this should be fairly soon (month or two?)
I believe these are 2 completely different issues from a technical engineering stand point and Sonos need to be clear on their communication which they are talking about.

Stratos wrote:

I think there are two different things here:
1. Make Audible available so you can add it as a "Service" into Sonos like you can many others (spotify, deezer etc). This is what was removed a couple of years (approx) ago - I have no idea when this is being added back in.
2. Make it available via Alexa on the new Sonos ONE (like it is already available on the Amazon Echo). I think this should be fairly soon (month or two?)
I believe these are 2 completely different issues from a technical engineering stand point and Sonos need to be clear on their communication which they are talking about.

Audible will operate from the Audible app on your device. This is firmly in Amazon’s court. As you use Audible you will know how it works and why Amazon broke it.

You may not know that a Sonos speaker works by being told an address to go and fetch a file from. This address is saved on the speaker. The controller does nothing other than initially telling the speaker. That’s it. Really simple and extremely robust.

You know that Audible then WRITES back to your PERSONAL Audible account how far you have reached so that it may be synced with other Amazon content.
Sonos writes nothing.
Sonos can change the fundamental way their system works to enable this. A seriously major system rewrite from the bottom up.
Happy with a third party app writing stuff to your personal account file in another company?
Happy that Amazon will tell Sonos to get lost as you ain’t going anywhere near their account files?
Happy that it is highly likely to be unlawful?
Happy that it just wouldn’t work as a Sonos speaker is “dumb” thing and has no idea what is going on - unlike the Audible app?

Conclusion: waiting for Amazon to include Audible functionality back into Sonos. Sonos can’t do anything except ask.

Eek. I asked pretty much the same question. I just have the new One from the holiday sale and am disappointed as well.

Dumbazz wrote:

Audible is a real issue for a lot of us system owners/users and at this time I not aware of any good solution. I've been on the "chuck all the sonos and start over" precipice for about a month now. My "workaround" is the obvious one: I output some device (phone, cpu, whatever) to the 3.5mm input in the back of a play5 I happen to have. I'm glad I have it but never intended this Play5 to be my "computer" speaker. If anyone knows about a good way to use audible through sonos that doesn't involve a 3.5mm cable, I'd love to know it.

I'm curious: I don't use Alexa but am a heavy amazon consumer... would a house filled with of those little alexa units (from AMAZON not SONOS) solve the Audible problem? I love love love my sonos sound but also audible functionality. Gonna be an interesting gift-giving season. Somebody I know might be getting a lot of used sonos stuff. I HOPE NOT. There has to be a better way.

My boyfriend works for geeksquad just figured out a solution to this! At least for some of us.

So if you happen to have a Sonos Playbar or Sonos PlayBase and an Amazon Fire TV stick there is a way to make it work without any extra wires. You just need to use the Fire Tv to run audible, as long as you have Either Sonos playbase or Playbar attached to the same tv as the fire tv you can then use the app to cast Audible to the other speakers in the house.

I hope this helps others out! 🆒

The original timeline to have audible working with Sonos was this summer, i know they tried and failed to get it working by then. They have a new timeline of the end of this year.

The fact that for the last few days when you ask Alexa to play audible to a speaker or ask directly on the Sonos One she tries is a good sign i think.

To be honest I can care less about the story of why audible stopped working. Just fix it. It’s stupid that Sonos + Alexa dot works but Sonos one doesn’t. Seriously don’t need excuses just want the functionality. Sonos works great otherwise. Getting AirPlay with Apple would be cool but audible more important.

Saw this posted on another forum FWIW. Hopefully a sign it is coming back after years.
https://vowe.net/archives/016744.html#c080252

Sononos_fan wrote:

Saw this posted on another forum FWIW. Hopefully a sign it is coming back after years.
https://vowe.net/archives/016744.html#c080252

There's an alarming image included on top of it. 😉

Na, welches „Vöglein“ da wohl Volker Weber etwas „gezwitschert“ hat 😃

Since they seem to be advertising Audible on their Sonos One marketing welcome emails, I'd suspect it's coming sooner than later.

This is in Amazon’s hands to fix. They have to work on how Alexa processes requests. If I said “play my audiobook in the master bedroom,” she will respond “I can’t find “in the master’s bedroom.” The only thing that Sonos can do is wait. You can play your audible book to AppleTV and, if you have a playbar, go into Sonos and group the speakers for the book (lowering volume on playbar). Or download the book to computer and add to your library to play via Sonos. There are workarounds while they figure things out.

Well amazon can be blamed on some of the voice support. But when it comes to audible support this has been a mess by Sonos from the beginning when it stopped working a couple years ago. But they are finally getting it in order... finally.

upvote for audible support

Apparently sooner vs later doesn't include 2017. 2018 and still no audible. 2 years now. Disgraceful.

I never saw any predictions it would be 2017. Now if you said January-February 2018 - then I'm on board.

Sonos announced earlier that it would be complete by late 2016. Then ammended it to summer 2017.

Well I'm still sticking with Jan-Feb 2018.

It is my understanding that it was Audible that broke the support and it required Audible to get on the ball working with Sonos to fix.

Audible updated their service to work on more things 2 years ago. That is eons in consumer tech world. Since then Google came up with the assistant. Amazon came up with several new echo’s. Have you asked yourself who else is having a problem with Audible? Apple? Android? Anybody? Then ask yourself why Sonos said Oct 2016. Then spring 2017. Then summer 2017. And now it is 2018. I’m done here. Have fun.

I don’t use audible and don’t particularly care about its status on other devices. I just know it is returning to Sonos after long absence any day now.

Chris wrote:

I don’t use audible and don’t particularly care about its status on other devices. I just know it is returning to Sonos after long absence any day now.

Hey Chris,

What makes you think it's just a matter of days? Or January-February 2018?

My return window closes during that January-
February time frame, and, given the record from 2016 to now on the Audible front, I'm inclined to return my Sonos One and wait until this is resolved before considering re-buying it, if I haven't simply gone with a Bluetooth speaker plus Echo Dot approach.

As I was just researching casually this past weekend...some Bluetooth speakers can maintained connection w more than one source (though maybe not simultaneously actively...), so even Sonos' projected multi-smart-assistant promise might be approachable with just adding a Google Home Mini or whatever if I feel like it...