Your phone controls your speakers through the app that matches the badge on the box, and for most systems that app is the best remote in the house. AirPlay speakers answer to the AirPlay button in Control Center, Sonos speakers to the Sonos app, Chromecast speakers to Google Home, and a Bluetooth speaker to whichever phone is paired with it. Each of those apps controls its own brand and stops there, so a house with three kinds of speaker ends up holding three remotes.
The other thing that shapes how all this feels is whether the phone is only the remote or is also the thing playing the music. That is what decides whether a phone call stops the kitchen.
Which app controls which speakers?
One app per brand, and AirPlay casts the widest net of the four.
AirPlay speakers and HomePods: Control Center
Play something, swipe into Control Center, tap the AirPlay button, tick every speaker you want. With AirPlay 2 the iPhone plays to several at once, and what matters is the badge rather than the maker. HomePod and HomePod mini, Apple TV, most current Sonos speakers, and plenty of receivers and TVs with AirPlay built in all take it. Apple’s note on AirPlay covers what the iPhone can do here and what a Mac can’t. Each speaker gets its own slider in that list, and the phone’s volume buttons move them all together.
The Home app shows the same speakers from another angle, with what is playing in each room.
Sonos speakers: the Sonos app
In an all-Sonos house the Sonos app does the whole job. Group the rooms you want, set one room or the whole group, pick the music from the services signed into the app, and everything plays in time. The speakers fetch the music themselves, so your phone can go to the shops and the sound stays put. What it groups is Sonos: a HomePod or a Bluetooth speaker cannot join. Most Sonos speakers also take AirPlay 2, and Sonos’s own AirPlay page lists which models, which matters further down this page.
Chromecast speakers: Google Home
Chromecast built-in speakers and displays group in Google Home, and a group plays in sync. Anything with a Cast button, Spotify included, sends to that group, and the app sets each speaker’s volume. Here too the speaker pulls the music down itself, so the phone is free to leave. It reaches Cast hardware, app by app, so what arrives is that app’s music and not whatever else the phone is doing. The group volume controls have moved around more than once, so trust what is on your screen over any guide written last year.
Spotify Connect and Tidal Connect
Connect is the version where the phone is purely a remote. Pick a speaker inside the Spotify app and that speaker pulls the song from Spotify by itself. Lock the phone, take a call, drive off, and the song carries on. Tidal Connect works the same way for Tidal.
The list only holds speakers with Connect built in, and a HomePod is not one of them. One account plays to one place at a time, and a set of speakers counts as one place only if the brand’s own app grouped it first. It is also one service: open a podcast app or a browser tab and Connect is out of the picture. Playing Spotify on multiple AirPlay speakers from a Mac goes further into that.
Bluetooth speakers: whatever phone is paired
A Bluetooth speaker takes its orders from the phone it is paired to, and that phone is also doing the playing. One speaker at a time in ordinary use. The link reaches about ten metres in the open and less through a wall, so a walk to the next room tends to stutter and then go quiet. Connecting multiple Bluetooth speakers to a Mac covers what a Mac can do with a shelf of them.
Why does the music stop when I take a call?
Because on that setup the phone is the thing playing it. AirPlay straight from an iPhone works that way, and so does Bluetooth. The song leaves the phone, so anything that interrupts the phone interrupts the room. Apple’s HomePod guide says it plainly: if your iPhone moves out of range of your HomePod, media stops playing. A HomePod playing Apple Music on its own is fine, because the phone only pressed the button. A browser tab is not.
Systems where the speaker fetches the music itself survive all of that, which is a good part of why people like them. The trade is staying inside one brand or one service.
Can I control my Mac’s speakers from my iPhone?
Not with anything built into macOS. The Mac plays one thing to several speakers only from Apple’s own Music and TV apps, and Apple ships no phone app that hands you the Mac’s volume from the sofa. Worth wanting, though, because the Mac is the one machine in the house that can reach all the badges. It sits in one place with power and Wi-Fi, it holds the library and the browser, and it has Bluetooth for the speaker the others will not touch. Multi-room audio from a Mac with the speakers you already own covers the planning side.
Audiout fills both halves. On the Mac it is a menu-bar mixer: whatever the Mac is playing goes out to every speaker you pick, at once and in time, with a fader for each speaker and one Main Audio fader over all of them. AirPlay 2, AirPlay, Bluetooth and Chromecast speakers share that one mixer, so the HomePod, the Sonos and the kitchen Bluetooth speaker can play the same song at the same moment. Audiout for Mac is €24.99 once, and the free 14-day trial of Audiout for Mac asks for no card and no email.
The phone half is Audiout Remote, the free iPhone app included with Audiout for Mac, and it is coming soon. It will find your Mac over the same Wi-Fi, and you allow it on your Mac once. No account, no sign-in, and every phone in the house is allowed the same way. Its page on this site says what it will do and takes one email for the day it ships.
From the phone you will get that mixer row for row, so dragging a row moves the fader on the Mac. Pick a scene, which is a saved set of speakers, and the Mac brings it back. Open the apps tab and you can see where each app is playing and send Spotify out to the patio without getting up, which works for AirPlay and Bluetooth speakers but not Chromecast. If a Bluetooth speaker plays a beat behind the rest, the phone’s microphone will measure the gap so the Mac can correct it.
The phone never plays a note of it. The music is on the Mac, which is why a call, a flat battery or a trip to the car changes nothing in the room.
So which remote should you use?
If everything you own carries the same badge, use the app that came with it. The Sonos app in a Sonos house and Control Center in an Apple one were written by the people who built the speakers, and it shows.
If your shelves disagree with each other, the Mac is the piece that can hold them all. Start by getting one song onto every speaker in the house at once from the Mac, and worry about the remote after that. The phone part is the easy half.
Common questions
Can I control all my home speakers from one app on my iPhone?
Only if they all carry the same badge, or all carry AirPlay 2. The AirPlay button in Control Center reaches AirPlay speakers, the Sonos app reaches Sonos, Google Home reaches Chromecast speakers, and a house with one of each needs all three. A Mac can hold mixed speakers on a single mixer instead, and Audiout Remote, the free iPhone app included with Audiout for Mac, will be the phone half of that. It is coming soon.
Why does the music stop when I get a call or leave the house?
Because on that setup the phone is the thing playing the music. AirPlay straight from an iPhone and Bluetooth both send the song out of the phone, so a call takes priority and walking out of range ends it. Where the speaker fetches the music itself, as Sonos, Chromecast and Spotify Connect do, the phone can go anywhere.
Can I control my Mac's audio from my iPhone?
Nothing built into macOS does it. Audiout for Mac adds a menu-bar mixer for every speaker you pick, and Audiout Remote, the free iPhone app included with it, will show that mixer on your phone over the same Wi-Fi. There will be no account and no sign-in, and you will allow it on your Mac once. It is not on the App Store yet, and its page on this site takes an email for the day it is.