Connect Google Home to Sonos for sound only

[Juliale]

Dear all,

I am using Google Home to play music through YouTube Play Music. I do not have a YouTube Premium subscription, so I am getting some Ads, but I am ok with that.

Now I'd like to use Sonos as a speaker rather than the built-in Google Home speaker. I went roughly through these steps:

https://support.sonos.com/en/article/set-up-a-google-assistant-device-to-control-sonos

This is not working: it's saying that my YouTube subscription doesn't allow me to play the songs. 

So the end result is that I can play arbitrary songs (potentially with ads) from YouTube play music on my Google Home device, but if I ask it to use Sonos as a speaker, that doesn't work. This is very disappointing and doesn't make any sense to me.

I'd like Google Home to show the video and just send over wifi the "sound data" and Sonos should just play it, without knowing where it's coming from.  

However, that's not how the integration seems to be working. It seems like I have to set up YouTube Music on Sonos too and when I ask for a song to Google Home, Sonos is trying to use its own integration with YouTube Music to play the song. That doesn't work because you need a YouTube Premium subscription. I can guess why: Sonos doesn't show a video and Ads.  However, my song is coming from the Google Home device (I have a google Nest Max Hub) and that can show the video (and the potential ads).

Is there a way I can set up Google Home to use Sonos just as an audio device that just plays some sounds rather than its own system that has its own integration with YouTube music?

I had some partial success with my Sonos Move, because it can work as a bluetooth audio device. However that's not really working well:

* Very often (almost always) the audio is choppy, despite by best efforts of restarting everything and keeping the Sonos Move just a few centimeters away from the Google Home. Is there anything I can do about that?

* I want to use the whole Sonos system, which includes multiple speakers, and the Move is just one of them. And I'd like to use it over wifi since my guess is that it works more reliably.

Can I use something like AirPlay for this?

[Juni]

Hi Juliale,

Thanks for reaching out and providing detailed information on your issue and the steps that you've taken—these are of great help!

You can make Sonos your preferred speaker for music. Check the steps below for how to set that up.

Set your preferred media playback device:

1.  Make sure your mobile device or tablet is linked to the same account as your speaker.
2. Open the Google Home app .
3. Touch and hold your device's tile.
4. At the top right, tap Settings Audio, then:
   • To choose the speaker you want to use when you play music, tap Default music speaker.

Check out this article for more information.

Regards,

Juni

[Juni]

Hi there,

Buzzing in — I just wanted to follow up if you were able to try the steps provided. Please let us know as we would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
 

Best,

Juni

[Juni]

Hi there,

We haven’t heard back from you, so I'll be locking this thread in 24 hours. Feel free to create a new one if you have other concerns in the future.
 

Thanks,

Juni