Sonos in Car

Danny, thanks for your response. 

Yes I agree Sonos should not do this if there is little chance of it being profitable. I believe in exploring ideas, entertaining discussion, brainstorming, and seeing if possibilities exists rather than shooting down ideas because nobody has done something or other before. That’s not how innovation works.

It’s not realistic for me personally to develop such an app if it’s even possible, although I suppose if it’s possible I could look into hiring it out. Clearly it would be nice if it’s something Sonos can and would do. I’m old school and only develop on the desktop. I still develop in Cold Fusion, hah. That’s how old school I am. :) 

Thanks again for your response.

Perhaps to give some background, many of us have seen variations of this idea for quite some, specifically thinking that the Sonos app is a music player and not a controller.  It’s not as if ideas are bad, we’ve seen them before and have already gone through figuring out why the idea may not be that good.  We also see what is requested most often so have some sense of what people want, very much informally and inaccurately.  As an example, one common one is to be able to use Fives as front speakers in a home theatre setting, and pretty much everyone is for that idea.  The product to make it happen has even be coined as ‘Super Connect’.

Yes, I was in college when Cold Fusion first came out.  Definitely Old School.

I think the problem with this is it pretty much has to be a hardware device.  An app that drew from several different streaming services to create a queue would probably face opposition and difficulty in achieving licensing from all the streaming partners, but hardware based probably faces less problems in that arena.  Although, I can’t tell you why I’m making that assumption, and it could be totally wrong.  It just feels like they’d see it differently, although there’s no good reason they should.

I wonder, does Roon have mixed playlists? Perhaps a Roon app on a portable device, maybe a Raspberry Pi based player.  Just brainstorming.

I would purchase the Sonos “Car Connect” in a heartbeat. I guess that’s probably pretty obvious at this point isn’t it. :)

How nice it would be to walk out the door with my same Sonos app, jump in the car, and have all my same Sonos stuff pulling in from around the Internet just like I do in the house? Sonos is so brilliant for putting together everything in the way they did it, and it’s such a downer in the car to not have all of that great stuff in one central place. 

We often get caught up on what something does currently and come up with limitations due to the way it works already. Those limitations are frequently limitations in thinking more than anything else (not saying that’s the case here necessarily), as something that hasn’t historically done something or other doesn’t mean it can’t be altered to do that thing now. Clearly this could be done in the car just like it’s already being done in the house. The app would have to change to be something more than a controller, yes. Licensing issues and/or profitability issues may preclude from doing this anyway even if it can be done, yes I get that too.

What if it turns out 5% of Sonos’ current customers would purchase the Sonos Car Connect? I don’t know if it would be worth making the product for that, but it may well be. Sonos could of course find out with a survey. Should it turn out licensing is not an issue and the product could be profitable, I’d love to see it made. It’s been on my wish list for a long time now, and I’m not taking it off. :)

I just can’t stay away from this thread… my jaw hits the floor every time I come back to it.  So what is the market size of people who have to have exactly the same playlist in the car as they have at home, drawn from multiple streaming services?  I think that’s you, @brad_switzer .  You are the potential market.  Which is the best company to build this?  Why, a company that specialises in multiroom home audio systems with an app that doesn’t play music, of course…

Keep it coming….

I agree: mind-blowing. He’s already said in an earlier post that he believes that his needs are unique, yet still expects Sonos to develop this for him. Don’t mis-understand me, brad_switzer, you’re quite entitled to have and express your wants and desires (within legal limits!!!)  but I really think your expectations are a little too high.

I’d certainly be interested if Sonos, like Bose and others, work with a car company to produce an in-car speaker system, but with the changes in background noise from engine/motor, wind and road surface I don’t see it being the same premium, tuned sound system we can get from a home installation.

You guys are bashing him for no reason.  All he has is a wish that he can have one place to go for his music experience (at home and outside home).  His baseline is the Sonos app.  Be happy for him, say yup, that would be nice for you and move on.  Why shoot down an idea.

I am actually the opposite even though I also want the same experience at home and outside the home.  The difference is that I simply never use the Sonos app.  I use either Spotify Connect or Airplay 2. My experience is the same at home and outside the home.  Couldn’t care less about multi-room whole home audio, yet I do still like my Sonos speakers.  I like having choice.  And Sonos didn’t lose a sale because of it.  It is not an all-or-nothing deal.  Perhaps if I could use the Sonos app outside the home, they would lure me in even further.

Thank you Sonosg. :)

Yes John...I said my needs are unique, and I never said I was the only person in the entire world who has this desire. That’s how you’re framing it. 5% of a community could desire something unique from the needs of the rest of a larger community. It could also be that 5% of a market is quite profitable. I’d be quite happy to sell 5% of my own customers something new if it makes me money. That all seems obvious to me but from your response apparently doesn’t seem obvious to you. I never realized wanting to use my Sonos app in the car would be viewed as some wild crazy desire way outside the box. To me that sounds like something absolutely normal and obvious one might want to do. My needs may be unique but I highly doubt that makes me completely alone in this desire. 

My world inside the home is absolutely amazing due to the Sonos app. I’ve got 5 zones so I can tap into this world anywhere I am in the house. I’d just love to add a zone 6 in the car. Now that I know that’s an absolutely crazy and unacceptable thing to desire though and I must just not get it, I’ll discontinue. By discontinue I mean I’ll discontinue the thread now. I won’t discontinue my desire for the app, and I’ll still be hoping Sonos or somebody else brings this together in the future because for me and anybody else like me, this makes perfect sense.  

For anyone who at least entertained the discussion above with an open mind, I thank you. I learned a few things here in this thread and I also want to thank you for that as well.

It’s not a terrible idea, and I kind of like my mixed source playlists at home, and it would be a “nice to have” on the go.  However, I doubt the people that want this are a large enough market share to develop for.