Parental Controls

Just checking in for my "every few months" update on this...

Ok, so I recently switched from a Spotify family plan to Apple Music all because of Spotify's complete refusal to implement an explicit filter. Now I find that the Sonos implementation of Apple Music does not allow you to filter explicit content.

So, the other day I put on a 90s playlist. After Parklife by Blur, I was treated to The Next Episode (feat. Snoop Dogg). When my 9 year old daughter is in the house, I don't want to hear stuff like "It's the motherfuckin D-O-double-G (Snoop Dogg)" coming out of my Sonos speakers. It's totally unacceptable. I don't want my kids to listen to offensive material.

As for "Sonos want people to hear the music as the artist intended". Oh, come on. Fine, we're not talking about editing songs, we're asking to just filter out explicit songs in searches and on public or platform generated playlists or for explicit versions to be substituted by radio edits. Think songs like Payphone or Cake by the Ocean. Both popular songs where the album versions are not kid friendly.

Apple are responsible for the implementation of their service in the Sonos system.

I think the way around this in the future will have to go along the lines of playing to Sonos from within the native Apple Music app, like Sonos has done with Spotify. At least then you can use Apple's native filtering within their app, which works the bulk of the time.

Count me in as someone who would like to see this feature. Especially since more and more the top playlists are usually filled with explicit songs. Even the auto-generated weekly playlists from Apple usually have at least one or two explicit songs. I have to avoid these altogether on my Sonos when my kids are around, especially since the New Music Mix contains songs that I don't know enough to change from memory. Even an indicator that the song is explicit like Apple Music has would be a step in the right direction.

Like one of the previous posters I left spotify to join Apple for their music filters. This is not totally wasted as I can now at least listen to playlists in the car without the fear of Effing n Jeffing coming out of nowhere, and our youngster learning about motherfuckers at the age of 6. I was however a bit disappointed to find that this doesn't carry through to Sonos, and judging by the age of similar posts doesn't look like it's going to happen either. Has anyone tried alternatives to Sonos that offer this kind of basic feature?

Checking in here for the update, I still have not seen progress in this area. I still contend that the way to go is to be able to feed to Sonos directly from the native Apple Music app, so that you can at least see "explicit" indicators, and (hopefully), have your device settings (more importantly your kids' device settings) controlling access to them.

Checking on this as well. Just changed from Spotify because of no explicit filter. Using Apple Music and loving it around the family until I find that the filter doesn't work with Sonos. What's up with that? Any update on getting to play to Sonos through the Apple Music app like you can directly from Spotify? Any other solutions?

Well at least now you can see the "E" indicator in Sonos. Helps navigate the mine field somewhat. Still would prefer control from native app. However, my bet is that will never happen now that Apple is pushing their own speaker.

Looks like this problem is solved (at least for the items labeled with the E in Apple Music). Preferences, Parental control, turn on filter, done. Thank god. Now to get my 5 year old to stop calling me a MotherF***er.

Finally, thank you, Sonos.

Great for Apple Music users, it's about time it was implemented for all sources that have the ability to flag explicit content. I can't believe it that difficult to achieve.

Unless I’m missing something, the Sonos app does not, at least in the UK ‘honour’ the filter explocity songs setting that is available in the native Spotify app. My workaround for when the kids are around to to save the spotify olaylist and simply delete the songs labelled with an E. Not ideal, but kids are getting older so only a short term workaround needed.

I'm a longtime user of Sonos and Spotify. It's frustrating that Sonos doesn't offer a toggle that gives users the choice to simply skip Spotify tracks marked with the E explicit tag. Sonos sees the tag from Spotify—it shouldn't be that hard to just skip those tracks (when the user has made that choice). Spotify's app handles it just fine, and yes, I can control the Sonos speakers through the Spotify app, but it's not as convenient. Please integrate this feature, Sonos—it's simple and it would help a big number of your customers.

Also, you can't control the Spotify *app* (which does have explicit filtering) through Sonos speakers using the Alexa that lives in the newer Sonos speakers. So, Sonos, if you want to keep up with the smart-home future—and not lose all your business to Amazon/Apple/Google—you should build in functions to the Sonos app that work with the limited voice interface. Such as a global explicit filter that will not play any track from any service that's marked with the explicit tag.

Are these forums just feel good, ie lets just vent our feelings, or does Sonos read them? It looks like this thread is 2 years old. I use Pandora and I believe this issue still exists. Please fix! It's really embarrassing when my VP asks me why the music is inappropriate in our Cafe.