Use Sonos 5 as speaker for laptop without WiFi?

  • 15 January 2015
  • 7 replies
  • 4448 views

Hi. My wife gives training, and this involves playing video files on Powerpoint Presentations. Her MacBook's internal speakers aren't loud enough, so she wants to connect the laptop to a Sonos Play:5 (using a wire) in order to use that as a speaker. We did a test at home yesterday, and then went fine. However, when she took the laptop and speaker out of the house, it didn't work - perhaps because she didn't have the Bridge or a WiFi connection? Could anyone please tell me if she is able to use a Sonos 5 as a speaker without the Bridge and WiFi, and, if so, how to do this? I'm not very technical so please keep it simple! Thanks a lot.

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7 replies

Yes, you need to configure it while on the home network though. See here:

https://sonos.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1271/~/sonos-play%3A5-on-the-go---autoplay-line-i...
Many thanks, Garrett. I will give that a go!

Best wishes,
Rhodri
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Many thanks, Garrett. I will give that a go!

Best wishes,
Rhodri

Let us know how it went, we're here for you.
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Many thanks, Garrett. I will give that a go!

Best wishes,
Rhodri

Mohammed. Isn't it supposed to autoswitch to line in these days?
Would be handy not to have to care about this. Oops, Checked the settings. I guess you would have to put the unit to use itself as autoplay room. You keep adding new features. Good one. Can you set it to include autogrouped rooms or will this screw things up when you've brought the unit to another location, away from your sonosnet?
I haven't been able to do this. If I explain what I did, perhaps someone can tell me where I'm going wrong?:

1. I've connected the Sonos 5 to the MacBook with a wire (going into the socket marked with headphones in the Mac, and into the line-in socket of the speaker)
2. I have opened the Sonos app, gone to 'Sonos', Preferences..., Room Settings, and chosen the name of the speaker in 'Room settings for'
3. I then went to Line in (under Select music source in the app) and made sure that my speaker name was chosen.
4. I then set the volume level.
5. Having done all this, I closed the app. In order to test whether I'd now be able to use the speaker when connected to my MacBook but without Wifi, I turned off Wifi on the MacBook. I started playing a file on a Powerpoint presentation, but there was no sound. I went to the Sonos app, but without Wifi, I was not able to choose Line-in etc.

Any help much appreciated! Please be clear, though, as I'm not very techy, and don't even know what Autoplay refers to!

Thanks.
Rhodri, Did you ever find a solution to this? I'm searching to see if this is possible before I go buy a set of computer speakers loud enough for a 70 person presentation. Thanks for any insight!
This is standard Sonos functionality on the Play:5. The instructions are here

https://sonos.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1091/~/using-line-in-on-sonos