Play Spotify Radio on Sonos?

[nealsil]

Hello all, i know the Sonos controller (desktop & iPhone) don't allow this natively but wondering is there a way to do it by somehow adding the Spotify url of the radio station to Sonos?

Thanks!

[agb007]

As far as I know the dock is the only soloution

br
agron

[ratty]

What URL? Spotify radio is a service, rather like Last.FM, which populates the Spotify play queue with current/next track on the fly.

If you mean the URL which you can obtain by right-clicking on the currently playing track on Spofify radio, that simply fetches the details for the current track.

[nealsil]

Meaning I wld dock my iPhone and use the spotify app instead of the sonos app? Can anyone confirm this please?

[ratty]

Spotify radio is not supported on Sonos at present. Your options are to:
- use the Spotify app on an iDevice in a Sonos Dock
- use Spotify on a computer and send audio to Sonos

The Dock is due to be discontinued, but there's still stock available.

Spotify on a computer can be sent to Sonos by:
- wiring to a Sonos Line-In connection
- streaming as a local 'radio' station using appropriate software
- sending using a Bluetooth adapter to a Bluetooth receiver
- sending as Airplay to an Apple Airport Express using Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil

[nealsil]

Originally Posted by ratty

Spotify radio is not supported on Sonos at present. Your options are to:
- use the Spotify app on an iDevice in a Sonos Dock
- use Spotify on a computer and send audio to Sonos

The Dock is due to be discontinued, but there's still stock available.

Spotify on a computer can be sent to Sonos by:
- wiring to a Sonos Line-In connection
- streaming as a local 'radio' station using appropriate software
- sending using a Bluetooth adapter to a Bluetooth receiver
- sending as Airplay to an Apple Airport Express using Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil

Thx for the reply. I'm asking about how the dock would work with the iPhone and spotify radio? Am I correct that u wld run the spotify app itself and not the sonos spotify in order to play spotify radio??

[ratty]

Originally Posted by nealsil

Thx for the reply. I'm asking about how the dock would work with the iPhone and spotify radio? Am I correct that u wld run the spotify app itself and not the sonos spotify in order to play spotify radio??

Yes. As well as pulling music stored on the iPhone, the Dock can also stream audio from any app.

You'd either select the Dock's input using a Sonos controller, or configure the Dock to 'AutoPlay' to specified Sonos zones.

[nealsil]

Very cool, thx i didn't know that!

If i wanted to do this option you mentioned:

"Spotify on a computer can be sent to Sonos by:

- streaming as a local 'radio' station using appropriate software"

can you point me in the direction to do that?

Thanks again.

[ratty]

Originally Posted by nealsil

- streaming as a local 'radio' station using appropriate software"

can you point me in the direction to do that?

There's a neat little trick called dsbridge which hijacks the output from Spotify on a PC. Unfortunately it's not been updated for a few years and can suffer from occasional dropouts.

A properly maintained -- and paid for -- app which streams PC soundcard output is Jamcast. dbPoweramp's Asset can also be used on later Windows versions.

VLC Media Player is free and can be made to work, but it can be pretty awkward to get going.

In my experience all of the above will only stream as MP3 at a maximum bitrate of 320kbps. If you want to move audio losslessly off a PC then right now Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil to an Airport Express wired to a Sonos Line-In looks like the best option.

---

I should have mentioned earlier that another possibility is to 'push' Spotify audio off the iPhone using Twonky. Never had experience of it so you'd need to do some exploring.

[nealsil]

All, I wanted to share something which turned out to be a simple solution (for me anyway). I found out by simply plugging in my iPhone to a Play 5 or connect line-in i can use Spotify radio. Of course i have to control everything from the iPhone but I would've had the same limitation had i used a Sonos Dock. Not ideal, but still better than nothing. AND i have total control to any/all zones.

Thanks to all for you input.