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Sonos Adds AirPlay 2 Support to Latest Speakers, Enabling Siri Control and Multi-Room Audio
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Go to the home app, "add device", say "device doesnt show up in list or no code present" (excuse the bad translation) and then the sonos speaker should show up and you can add it.
Please let me know.
Ya I went home again at lunch and no matter what I did having the extra Play:1's attached the Airplay 2 compatible Sonos speakers (my Play:5 and ONE) the Play:1's don't follow the group you assign in the Sonos app at all.
I even lost one of my Play:1's all together while switching around and had to rejoin it again.
Soooo I have Waited and Waited for this Sonos Airplay 2 support but honestly unless you are running all compatible Sonos Speakers (Play:5, One, Playbase) then you will lose your assigned groups every time.
Such BS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Nope, this does nothing as you can assign them in the other menu as well ... But the non supported speakers will NOT stay assigned tot he supported and just go rogue on their own and start working with either group as it just basically groups everything together once you pick both locations (the Play5 and Play ONE).
HUGE fail on this, hopefully they fix this somehow or Airplay 2 for Sonos "IF" you are trying to run a non supported speaker with a supported speaker is really worthless (unless you just run the whole house and every single speaker at one time).
I Knew this kind of crap would happen.
PLUS they said also with the new update you would be able to run a Sonos ONE and Play:1 in Stereo ... but that is not the case yet with the new update.
Been waiting for months for this after investing in a whole Sonos house system and at this point now I am ready to sell it all.
Great that Sonos have added support for Airplay 2. I did have 4 Sonos speakers around the house, however none were Gen 2, so can’t directly support AirPlay 2. Bought one HomePod when they were first released, thought it sounded better than my play:1 and marginally better than a play:5. So sold all of the other Sonos units and bought 3 more HomePods. 2 stereo paired HomePods blows Sonos out of the water.
The Airplay2 compatible speakers show up as speakers in the Home app
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There is an option in settings airplay group non-aiplay speakers
So, AirPlay 2 looks/looked promising, especially since my current setup is AirPlay [and since apparently my Denon 4400 is going to get AirPlay 2 support]. Thinking about getting a Sonos One to replace the Phillips Soundring I have in my bedroom. A few questions:
- HomeKit still doesn't allow for anything music related in scenes/automations, right? [This is a shame]
- All of this talk is about iPhone-sourced audio. I don't want that at all. I exclusively use a Mac with iTunes. Apparently there was an iTunes/OSX update recently that added AirPlay 2 support, but I can't quite understand what it does. What I would love is to say "Siri, play Mozart" [or at worst, "Siri, play Mozart on all the speakers"] on my phone, and have my Mac play Mozart and AirPlay it to whatever speakers it sees. Is this possible?
- Ideally, we'd combine 1 and 2 and I could say "Sexy time, Siri" and it would dim my lights, and start playing Barry White or whatever, but apparently that's too much to ask for.
Stereo pairs of Sonos speakers are created in the Sonos app. (I don’t know if it’s possible to do in the Home app, but I doubt it.)
Airplay is working fine with my pair of Sonos Ones. Thanks, Sonos!
Per the first sentence of the article you're responding to, add Playbase, Sonos One, and Beam to that list.
Are you REALLY sure Alexa is disabled? Did you code for Sonos or work on the Sonos One to be absolutely 100% certain? Imagine that looking deeper than just pressing a button
(there is a specific Bloomberg article about disabling Alexa being mentioned). but you got your likes though.
AirPlay2 is a bonus, but the fact that the speaker can integrate directly with a bunch of different music services without the need for touching your phone is a huge plus.
Apple tried to sell the HomePod as a quasi-audiophile speaker. It may be good, but it's nowhere near audiophile quality. And even if the HomePod did have the engineering chops to be at or near audiophile quality, its source of streaming music isn't. Apple Music uses a lossy format for streaming. It doesn't even use Apple's lossless format, ALAC, which claims to be as good quality-wise as a CD. And if the numbers quoted for it's performance are accurate, it is.
But that's not what AM uses. The files would be too big and they would eat up a lot of a persons monthly data allotment if you end up streaming music thru your cell phone data plan. So they went for smaller sized song files and a lossy compression format, AAC. If you have fewer data points you lose sound quality and there isn't a way around that. Apple Music streams at 256 kbs. A competitor that calls itself audiophile quality, Tidal, has a service (HiFi) that streams at 1,411 kbs, more than 5.5 times the data that Apple Music has. Music reviews says Tidal sounds great, provided you have good speakers to play it through. And it's at least twice as expensive as Apple Music without having the selection of songs or artists. Tidal has the same problem with their service that Apple has with the HomePod: People will choose good enough over it sounds better but costs more.
You might be able to say the HomePod sounds 'better' than Spotify and if you are comparing a $30 speaker to a $350 dollar one it probably does. Congratulations, you beat a very cheap speaker playing a lower quality data stream song.
I am assuming that you can now stream to a HomePod using AirPlay2, which should mean that you can improve the sound source up to CD quality, if you have music stored on your computer. I think Apple has upgraded a large portion of iTune downloadable songs to ALAC versions, and certainly if you have ripped CD's stored somewhere those would qualify. I haven't seen anything online yet talking about any sound improvements of Airplay2 vs Apple Music but I'll admit I haven't looked in the last 2 weeks either. But thats NOT using Apple Music, and most people, including you, are comparing Apple Music to Spotify. Both are serviceable. Both are relatively affordable. Both are unremarkable, quality wise.
Sonos, with Airplay2, can also play CD quality and from more sources.
Unless I'm missing something, the only complaint I have is that you can't control the volume of individual speakers that are grouped outside of the Sonos app. I have a Play:1, Play:3 and Play:5, and can only change the volume of the 1 and 3 by still going into the Sonos app, as the AirPlay volume slider is just directly linked to the Play:5 grouping. Wish that grouping had a drop-down menu and I could change the volume of the speakers under it.
However, very happy lol.
However, very happy lol.
Provided you have at least one of the supported Sonos components, you can use them stream to other older "unsupported" Sonos components.
I just did this to test it, played a track directly from the iPhone Music app via airplay to a Gen 2 Play:5 stereo pair (with Sonos sub) in one room,and then had other zones play what was being played on the Gen 2 stereo pair. The other zones had older "unsupported" Sonos speakers/components, a Gen 1 Play:5 stereo pair, and two zones with a Sonos Connect.
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And here is me waiting for Apple and SONOS to bring their speaker products to Japan... *sigh*
Even tho, this development is cool, I still think I will opt for a HomePod. I like the aspect that I can speak to the speaker directly, without using my phone, because once music is playing the iPhone mic doesn't hear you at all, unless you are very close to it. That alone is a huge selling point for me. That is, once it releases here...
Even tho, this development is cool, I still think I will opt for a HomePod. I like the aspect that I can speak to the speaker directly, without using my phone, because once music is playing the iPhone mic doesn't hear you at all, unless you are very close to it. That alone is a huge selling point for me. That is, once it releases here...
This a very perplexing
How is it Sonos can update their software so fast?
Why is Apple so slow to update it’s software ?
Is there something wrong with Apple software development team ?
I mean look at the Messages bug , how long did they take to fix it ?
Is Apple operating like a small startup with only one product?
Probably a silly question but could anyone with Sonos 9.0 & a AP2 Sonos Device please confirm if the following would work:
My config:
Kitchen: 1x HomePod
Living Room: 2 x Play:1's
If I were to add a AP2 Sonos (say a Play One) in the Living Room, would I be able to:
a) stand in the kitchen and say 'Hey Siri, play X in the Living Room' ?
b) stand in the kitchen and say 'Hey Siri, play X in the Living Room & Kitchen' ?
I guess I'm not clear if the HomePod counts as a group on it's own.
My config:
Kitchen: 1x HomePod
Living Room: 2 x Play:1's
If I were to add a AP2 Sonos (say a Play One) in the Living Room, would I be able to:
a) stand in the kitchen and say 'Hey Siri, play X in the Living Room' ?
b) stand in the kitchen and say 'Hey Siri, play X in the Living Room & Kitchen' ?
I guess I'm not clear if the HomePod counts as a group on it's own.
Seems to be working okay for me. I have two sonos ones and an old play. Haven’t tried grouping in the play, bu mirroring to both ones works fine, and is frankly simpler than the sonos app which always seemed to get screwed up for me.
I was extremely excited to update my Sonos system today after I read that the new 9.0 update was bringing AirPlay to Sonos finally!
I currently own two Ones, two Play:1s, a Playbar, a Sub, and three HomePods. This update meant I could finally use my HomePods and Sonos system as one, cohesive experience.
It turned out that not only could I not use my Ones as rear channels for my Playbar/Sub (if I want AirPlay support), but for whatever reason, when I try and play music from Apple Music on my iPhone, my Sonos Speakers and Homepods refuse to stay in sync.
No matter what I do, the speakers only stay synced for 20-40 seconds before they start losing their place in the song. I’ll give it a few seconds to fix itself, but they refuse to stay synced together, with the speakers jumping all over the place. They’ll only stay synced if I stick to one speaker manufacturer at a time. (So only HomePod or only Sonos).
I’ve invested thousands of dollars in these speakers over the years, I only bought the Ones with the expectation that they would finally bridge the gap between Apple and Sonos with AirPlay 2, and so far the whole setup has been janky and half baked.
Anybody have any tips or recommendations on how to get these speakers to play nice?
EDIT: I noticed that when I was moving around in my space was when I noticed the most latency between the speakers. So I changed a couple things, I positioned a few of the antennas on my router towards the area where my speakers reside, and I changed to "Compressed" rather than "Uncompressed" for Compression settings in the advanced settings of the Sonos app. Not sure if the latter actually did anything, but I was trying to troubleshoot on my own, and those two things made a huge difference in the speakers cutting out.
Now they're not cutting out nearly as much when I walk around my place, and if they do lose their sync, it's only for a quick second, then it fixes itself.
I currently own two Ones, two Play:1s, a Playbar, a Sub, and three HomePods. This update meant I could finally use my HomePods and Sonos system as one, cohesive experience.
It turned out that not only could I not use my Ones as rear channels for my Playbar/Sub (if I want AirPlay support), but for whatever reason, when I try and play music from Apple Music on my iPhone, my Sonos Speakers and Homepods refuse to stay in sync.
No matter what I do, the speakers only stay synced for 20-40 seconds before they start losing their place in the song. I’ll give it a few seconds to fix itself, but they refuse to stay synced together, with the speakers jumping all over the place. They’ll only stay synced if I stick to one speaker manufacturer at a time. (So only HomePod or only Sonos).
I’ve invested thousands of dollars in these speakers over the years, I only bought the Ones with the expectation that they would finally bridge the gap between Apple and Sonos with AirPlay 2, and so far the whole setup has been janky and half baked.
Anybody have any tips or recommendations on how to get these speakers to play nice?
EDIT: I noticed that when I was moving around in my space was when I noticed the most latency between the speakers. So I changed a couple things, I positioned a few of the antennas on my router towards the area where my speakers reside, and I changed to "Compressed" rather than "Uncompressed" for Compression settings in the advanced settings of the Sonos app. Not sure if the latter actually did anything, but I was trying to troubleshoot on my own, and those two things made a huge difference in the speakers cutting out.
Now they're not cutting out nearly as much when I walk around my place, and if they do lose their sync, it's only for a quick second, then it fixes itself.
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I used to own a Libratone speaker. It was unreliable. With Sonos I have never had this issue. In limited testing AirPlay 2 on Sonos seems to work well, about as responsive as the regular Sonos app. AirPlay 2 is a nice update over AirPlay 1, I'm sure you'll appreciate your Libratone even more once it lands.