How do airplay receivers work

Not only that, but making music playback possible from wherever you are in the house. AirPlay 2 adds the ability to stream music to multiple audio devices all at the same time. You could use it to call up a song on your iPhone and play it in multiple rooms simultaneously, or pick and choose which AirPlay speaker to stream to. Yep, AirPlay can finally party. In addition, with iOS AirPlay 2 is backward-compatible and works the same way as the original: Hit the AirPlay icon on your phone, iPad or Mac to play your content on available speakers or video devices.

The main difference is that older AirPlay devices won't be included in multiroom groups. There are two main icons for AirPlay and will vary according to which app you're using: the video icon a TV with an Arrow , and audio radiating circles.

Pressing either of these will bring up a list of devices on your network which you can then stream to. AirPlay 2 unlocked several features of the speaker, including multiroom and stereo pairing the ability to use separate HomePods as left and right speakers. AirPlay 2 also allows you to ask Siri, Apple's voice assistant on the speaker and other devices, to play music in a particular room or throughout the house.

More recently Apple added the ability for multiple people to share control of a music queue. This means that everyone can be the DJ at your next house party provided everyone has their own Apple Music subscription first. When it comes to listening to music wirelessly, most people think of Bluetooth. AirPlay 2 does a lot more than Bluetooth: It lets you send both audio and video to a growing variety of devices such as TVs, speakers, and home theater receivers, all sans wires.

If you own more than one AirPlay 2-compatible audio device, you can stream your music to just one of them, some of them, or all of them without losing synchronization. If that sounds cool to you, stay with us. Streamed content can include music, video, photos, and screen sharing, all of which retain their metadata when sent via AirPlay. You can even turn wired speakers into receivers with the Belkin SoundForm Connect audio adapter. The third-party adapter plugs into any speaker with an optical or 3.

With AirPlay 2, you can stream music to multiple AirPlay 2 speakers simultaneously, creating a true multiroom streaming system. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Learn more. But what is AirPlay 2 and what can it do? It enables you to stream a wide range of content from your phone to your Apple TV, certain audio devices like a Sky Q box , an audio device like a compatible Sonos speaker or, new recently, compatible televisions. This latest version of AirPlay also ushers in multi-room compatibility for the HomePod. AirPlay 2 also enables device mirroring to share the content of your phone's display on another device.

AirPlay was first introduced in September , having previously been called AirTunes for audio-only streaming. AirPlay 2 rolled out as part of iOS The full list of compatible devices is as follows and these are basically the Apple devices you'll be able to use:.

Apple AirPlay 2 adds speaker control to the Home app, meaning you can individually control all of your AirPlay-compatible speakers from your iPhone for the first time.