Love listening to BBC Sounds, TuneIn, or any other online radio platform? Here’s how to get that audio onto your Sonos speakers directly from Chrome, no workarounds needed.
Online radio is having a quiet renaissance. Whether it’s live BBC broadcasts, digital-only stations, regional radio you can’t pick up locally, or curated music from platforms like TuneIn or Radio.com, more people are turning to browser-based radio for their listening than ever before. And yet streaming that audio to a Sonos system from a PC has always been needlessly complicated.
Sonos does include a selection of radio stations in its app, but the catalogue has its gaps, and if your preferred station isn’t listed, you’re left searching for alternatives. Cast to Sonos takes a different approach entirely: instead of requiring your station to be pre-approved and integrated, it captures audio from your Chrome tab, encodes it into MP3 chunks, and streams it directly to your Sonos speakers. Any station. Any platform. Any time.
Step 1: Install Cast to Sonos
Open Chrome and go to the Cast to Sonos page on the Chrome Web Store. Click Add to Chrome and confirm the installation.
Once it’s added, pin the extension to your toolbar so it’s always one click away: click the puzzle piece icon, find Cast to Sonos, and click the pin icon next to it.
Step 2: Open Your Radio Platform in Chrome
Navigate to whichever radio or audio platform you want to use. This could be:
- BBC Sounds (sounds.bbc.co.uk) for live BBC Radio 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 Music, 5 Live, World Service, and more
- TuneIn Radio for thousands of live stations from around the world
- com or iHeart Radio for US-based stations
- Any independent station or community radio platform with a web player
Find the station or programme you want to listen to, get the player loaded and ready, but hold off on pressing play for now.
Step 3: Connect to Your Sonos Speaker
Click the Cast to Sonos icon in your toolbar to open the extension. You’ll see a list of Sonos devices available on your local network. Select the speaker you want to stream to-or, if you have a multi-room setup, choose a speaker group to have the audio fill multiple rooms simultaneously (multi-speaker support is available on Stereo and Premium plans).
Once you’ve made your selection, press the Play button inside the extension. Then go back to your browser tab and start the radio stream. The audio will begin coming through your Sonos system within a moment or two.
Troubleshooting Tips
Audio not starting? Check that no other stream is actively playing through your Sonos system. Pausing any active streams in the Sonos app before casting gives Cast to Sonos a clean handover.
If you’d like to see Cast to Sonos in action, a [step-by-step video tutorial on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBx0BjxkfEI) walks through the setup process visually and is a helpful complement to these written instructions.
Download Cast to Sonos from the Chrome Web Store and start enjoying online radio through the speakers it deserves.