Sonos: Arc, Amp, Beam, One, One SL, Play:5 (2nd gen), Playbase, IKEA Symfonisk bookshelf speaker, IKEA Symfonisk lamp speaker
Here's just a selection of some of the audio products that support AirPlay 2: But perhaps the biggest of all is AirPlay 2 Sonos products, of which there are plenty.Īre your speakers old or not smart-enabled? Plug in Belkin's Soundform Connect and they'll gain AirPlay 2, so you can beam tunes to them from an Apple device. Naim, Bose, Bang & Olufsen, Devialet, Dynaudio, Bowers & Wilkins, Bluesound, Libratone, Denon and the Apple-owned Beats all have devices that use the technology. On the audio side, plenty of big products support AirPlay 2. The following Apple products fulfil that criteria. To support AirPlay 2, an Apple product must run iOS 11.4 or later, or the equivalent iPadOS or tvOS version.
You can't get AirPlay 2 on an Android device. One key thing about AirPlay 2 is that the music source (and control) is always an Apple product. While Siri is integrated into the HomePod, other speakers (such as the Sonos One) rely on AirPlay 2's connection to your iOS device to speak to Siri. Other benefits of AirPlay 2 include improved audio buffering, integration with Siri voice control and multiple control access across iOS devices (a useful touch for multi-room streaming).
This can be done in the Home app, which you’ll also need for any Apple smart home actions.Īfter that, simply access the Control Centre at any point on your iOS device to control which speakers are playing at any time, both individually and as a group. Much like Sonos’s app, you can define where in your house the speaker is located, using labels such as ‘Bedroom’ or ‘Kitchen’ to identify them.
As long as all the devices are on the same wi-fi network, you just have to access the music controls on your iPhone, Apple TV or MacBook's iTunes and select a connected speaker (or more than one) to send the music to. You can mix-and-match AirPlay-2 compatible speakers from other audio brands to create a more versatile multi-room system. Originally meant to launch with the ( now retired) Apple HomePod smart speaker, it was designed to let you set up two HomePods as a stereo pair (which we’d recommend) and pepper multiple HomePods around your home – all controlled by your iOS devices.īut it’s not restricted to Apple’s own ecosystem. It’s Apple’s first real move into multi-room technology, with AirPlay 2 finally letting you stream music from your iOS device to more than one product. The biggest feature of AirPlay 2? Multi-room.