I’m excited to announce that Cast to Sonos has upgraded its hosting infrastructure to Hetzner Cloud, bringing big improvements to your streaming experience while also using more sustainable hosting.
Faster Streaming with Dedicated Regional Servers
I have deployed dedicated server pools in both Europe and the United States to ensure that no matter where you’re located, your streaming experience is as fast and responsive as possible. This strategic server placement means:
- Reduced Latency: Your audio streams now travel shorter distances, resulting in quicker response times when you cast to your Sonos speakers.
- Faster Connection Times: Experience near-instant connections when you click the “Cast to Sonos” button in your browser.
- More Reliable Streaming: Regional servers mean fewer network hops and more stable connections, reducing the chance of interruptions during your listening sessions.
Every new paid subscription is enough to add an additional streaming server. With plans to add a new server pool in the Singapore region for more stable and faster streaming for users in Asia.
Whether you’re streaming your favorite podcast, playing YouTube videos, or enjoying music from your browser, our new infrastructure ensures the audio reaches your Sonos speakers with minimal delay.
Unfortunately there is still a big difference in expectation vs reality when it comes to the delay during streaming. The delay with playback is due to your device buffering the audio stream, this is because the audio is streamed live. When you are listening on Spotify for example, you don’t have this delay because the song can be buffered in advance. I am thinking of workarounds however, this will be in the form of dedicated player app that connects directly to the extension. This, however will only work for downloaded files and certain websites that allow for media embedding.
Carbon-Neutral Hosting
In addition to performance improvements, I’m happy to share that our new hosting provider, Hetzner, is fully carbon neutral. Hetzner is a better fit for our current infrastructure as its more efficient for long running processes like streaming.
This move aligns with our commitment to providing not just the best service for our users, but also making responsible choices for our planet.
What This Means for You
As a Cast to Sonos user, you’ll benefit from these improvements automatically—no updates or changes needed on your end. You should notice:
- No more connection resets
- Faster response times when casting audio
- More stable connections during extended listening sessions
You don’t need a fast internet connection but you do not one that is stable, streaming from remote locations with a choppy connection can cause random connection drops or static noise. Its often not the connection to your Sonos that is the problem but often the internet connection of the laptop/macbook/pc you are streaming from. If you are having connection issues, using a cabled internet connection could be a solution.
Looking Forward
I’m continuously working to fix and improve the application so any feedback is welcome!
Stay tuned for more updates and enhancements coming soon to the Cast to Sonos extension!
Haven’t tried Cast to Sonos yet? Get started by downloading our extension from the Chrome Web Store and start enjoying browser audio on your Sonos speakers today.