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I just received my SYMFONISK WiFi speakers and installed the Sonos app on my iPad.  I am now playing music through the Spotify app.  I noticed that in the upper right corner of my iPad the network/Wi-Fi  ‘spiny  circle’ (on the left in picture below) keeps on spinning nonstop. I’m not sure but I think my battery is draining faster than it had been before.  

I am trying to understand if the mechanism that is being used to get music from the Spotify app on my iPad to my speaker is one which ends up using a lot of battery power. 

I had been using a Google mini before and don’t think the spinny circle thing was constantly spinning when playing music from Spotify to the Google mini speakers via my iPad. I’m wondering if the mechanism that is now being used is different than what was occurring with my Google mini. Perhaps it involves using both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi which causes a lot more power to be drained?

Thank you.

Hi @JoeT99 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

Playing Spotify on Sonos from your Spotify iPad app should in fact take less iPad battery power than playing Spotify without Sonos. All commands from the Spotify app go via the cloud to reach your speaker, so there is no direct link between your iPad and Symfonisk speakers in this use case.

Having said that, Spotify is a third-party app and I can’t say for sure what it’s doing and not doing, in the background.

I don’t know what the spinning circle is - I’ve never owned an iPad. I’m sure someone in the community can help, however.

If you were to browse Spotify from within the Sonos app, then the speakers will do all the work. The iPad can even be off once it’s told the speakers what to do - it won’t make any difference to playback.

I hope this helps.


Spinny wheel next to the WiFi icon spins when programs or web pages are loading network stuff. Can happen with apps running in the background…. just pick a random app and it will probably do it. Siri can be guilty.

Force close all your apps and restart, if it still does it reset the network settings on the iPad. Probably a rouge but of software, some live with it forever.


Thank you for the replies. I’m going to be watching the Spinney circle over time when I’m not using the speaker versus when I am using the speaker to see if there’s any pattern/correlation. I was used to using a Google mini and I am trying to comprehend the differences in how the music is sent to the Google mini versus how the music/sound is sent to the Sonos speaker.  I noticed the Spinney circle and alarms started going off in my head that something ‘bad’ was happening. I guess this is more about my just not being used to something new than about something not working correctly.