If you were hoping to listen to your favorite audiobooks from Audible on your Sonos, you may have been disappointed to find out that Sonos does not natively support Audible. Even the Play One with built-in Alexa currently does not support Audible, despite both Alexa and Audible being owned by Amazon. Audible was available as a music service on Sonos up until the autumn of 2016, but an update rendered it incompatible. In April 2017, Sonos said that they were working on the solution.
The official solution is to use the line-in port on your Sonos speaker. However, not all Sonos speakers have a line-in port. The ones that do are the Sonos Play 5, the Sonos Connect, and the Connect Amp. Once you have plugged your device into the line-in socket of your speaker, you can listen to it on any Sonos speaker, including the Play One, Play Three, Play Bar, and Play Base, on your network.
Apple AirPlay
AirPlay is Apple’s audio and video streaming protocol. In October 2017, Sonos announced that it would be adding the latest version of AirPlay, AirPlay 2, to its speakers in 2018. If you cannot wait until then, you can use AudioBridge on your Mac to stream content from your iOS device or Mac to any Sonos speaker on the same network. AudioBridge costs around £8.99, which is around 10 U.S. dollars, and it’s available from http://audiobridge.site.
Using AudioBridge
To use AudioBridge, first, go to the AudioBridge website and click on “Try it.” This will download AudioBridge. Then, click into the downloads and double-click on the AudioBridge icon. Drag AudioBridge into your application folder and start AudioBridge using Spotlight by typing “AudioBridge” and pressing enter. Once AudioBridge is running, check that it is working by clicking on the icon in your taskbar. You should be able to see all of your Sonos speakers. If you click on preferences, you can see which particular speakers AudioBridge is going to work with.
Now that AudioBridge is running, you can load Audible on your iPhone and choose the audiobook you want to play through your Sonos speakers. At the top of the screen, there is the AirPlay icon. If you press on that, it may take a few seconds before the Sonos appears. Once it does, tap on the Sonos speaker you want to play it on and tap on “Done.”
There is a short delay between pressing a button on your Audible app and audio actually coming out of the speakers. The same happens when you press the pause button. This also means that it is unsuitable for watching video on your iOS device and having the audio coming out of your Sonos speakers because there will be a delay.
We hope you found this article helpful. If you’d like to learn more about Sight Airedale, please visit our website or join us on Facebook.