Great News for (Some) Sonos Users

Great news for Sonos customers: AirPlay 2 has arrived.

This makes compatible Sonos speakers the first third-party

AirPlay 2 speakers to hit the market, and support is being

added retroactively through a free software update.

This means you can use Sonos speakers to play audio

from iTunes on the Mac and all iPhone and iPad apps

including Music, TV, YouTube, and Netflix. Sonos speakers

can also be used for multi-room audio playback with HomePod

and Apple TV, and Siri can control Apple Music and Podcasts

playback from iPhone, iPad, HomePod, or Apple TV.

Sonos customers have long requested AirPlay support for

their speakers, but Sonos cited issues with latency and playback

interruptions as reasons for not adopting Apple’s wireless

streaming protocol. Sonos changed their tune when Apple

unveiled AirPlay 2 which reduces latency and accounts for

Wi-Fi interruptions.

AirPlay 2 works with the newest Sonos speakers (recognizable

by their touch controls instead of hardware buttons) which

includes Sonos Beam, Sonos Playbase, Sonos One, and the

second-gen Sonos Play:5.

You’re not totally out of luck if you have other Sonos speakers,

but AirPlay 2 is a lot easier to use on newer speakers. Older

Sonos speakers can work with AirPlay 2 when paired with

compatible speakers (like a Sonos Play:1 paired with a Sonos

One as a single stereo speaker). You can also press play on an

older Sonos speaker without AirPlay 2 to pick up the audio stream

from a compatible Sonos speaker.