Support Spotify Connect to allow users to use the Spotify app as the controller.
Userlevel 3
Spotify Connect was just announced and I was surprised that I didn't see Sonos in the list of companies that would provide support. Many Spotify users have been asking for a long time to be able to use the Spotify app as the controller for selecting songs, as it provides a superior experience (you still can't even see the Top 5 songs in the Spotify view within the Sonos app, and it is difficult to look through an artist's collection to find a specific song unless you know which album it was in). Please support spotify connect. Additional details on Spotify Connect are here: http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/3/4688166/spotify-connect-launches-to-stream-music-to-compatible-speakers If you look at the post on theverge, even the first comment was one asking for Sonos support for the feature.
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Forgive me if I am wrong, but if you have an Sonos ipod dock and an old ipod touch, you could theoretically have spotify connect through your sonos system, it would just be a bit slow to move between different zones as you would have to launch the sonos software to change. A work around, but I can see a fix through something similar could be possible, what about a "spotify sonos dongle" that includes the "new" hardware required to use the spotify connect system and link it to your sonos system, opening up the entire thing to spotify's connect architecture and monetizing it for them at the same time!
Userlevel 7
+17
I couldnt agree more - I dont use my stored music collection any more, just stream from spotify. However I use the Radio feature extensively when using the Spotify app in my car and would love this within the Sonos app - its how I find new and also long since forgotten music. Shame it will never happen now 😞
I love both sonos AND spotify, but as many other users, i only use Spotify on sonos. The sonos app is not nearly as useful as spotify's own app, which is understandable, but not supporting sonos connect could become a dealbreaker in buying more sonos components (having 2 so far)
Read my comments above for someone who isn't "open to being wrong". I fully admitted that both sides can have bias and that will influence how one interprets the situation. In fact, I'm the only one who has admitted it. And I have attacked no one; the fact you feel "attacked" speaks to your bias.
I tend to take spontaneous utterances as truth and carefully worded "I was taken out of context" statements (which follow stern corporate retractions) as BS. Anyone who says "but that wasn't what I said" after the suits/lawyers get invlolved are in CYA mode due to a spanking by the suits. (I know, call me cynical.) As I said to Mr. Knapp above, if you are more wedded to Spotify than Sonos, then you will naturally sell your Sonos. Just as many people on this thread are more wedded to Sonos than Spotify, and they will drop Spotify for another service. Neither is right or wrong, and I'll even go so far to say that one's preference for Spotify over Sonos would probably lead one to blame Sonos, and vice versa, regardless of the reality of the situation. You prefer Spotify, so Sonos is to blame for not meeting your needs. I prefer Sonos, so I see Spotify as being to blame for not working with Sonos. That's a natural reaction, and the truth probably lies closer to the middle, with both being somewhat to blame.
Userlevel 3
I guess I think you do a bit too much reading between the lines into your own bias, which is largely why I stopped responding to your comments, you aren't open to being wrong. Who spends their free time on get satisfaction attacking people who want support for a feature?
Read between the lines. Sonos is not going to blame anyone if they are hoping to salvage their partnership. In addition, blasting one of your "partners" does not reflect well on a company who has to gain/maintain partnerships with dozens of existing/upcoming service providers. Nobody wants to pair up with a company who has a reputation for publicly trashing their partners. Given this, Sonos' relatively neutral response to Spotify's borderline hostile announcement says a lot to me. YMMV. Still, the fact remains that the only definitive statement was from Spotify, and that statement said Spotify will not be working with Sonos going forward. Everything after that (from both companies) was boilerplate banality. Take of that what you will.
Userlevel 3
I find it difficult to believe that Sonos would not have made a statement by now indicating that they tried to support Spotify Connect but were told no by Spotify if that were the case. It would have immediately redirected a lot of attention back at Spotify, as they would be the ones clearly at fault.
The very fact that only "select" components can be upgraded points to them using a hardware chip. Airplay did the same thing; there were a few "select" components that had the chip preloaded, and they were already on the market when Airplay was launched. As to why they wouldn't allow it, they may have exclusive contracts with the manufacturers that squeeze out Sonos. They may dislike Sonos' app because they lose advertising and "Buy now!" type deals. They may see Sonos as a competitor for their new tech and wish to compete with them rather than work with them. There are many reasons why they wouldn't want to work with Sonos, and we can all speculate. Bottom line is, the only definitive statement made was that Spotify will no longer be working with Sonos, not that Sonos was unwilling to work with Spotify.
Userlevel 1
And you always believe what people say? He also tweeted on the same day: "No this is not correct. We will continue to develop and even expand that relationship. We are trying to get this rectified." (@pdemul) I'm just saying we can't look into the heads of the Sonos and Spotify managers so we will probably never know what formed their decision. Regardless of that Spotify now offers the better solution for me. So either Sonos catches up or I will sell it.
Userlevel 7
+17
after Phillips' announcement last week comes the next one from Pioneer regarding firmware upgrades on existing products to make them 'Spotify Connect compatible' http://asia.cnet.com/spotify-connect-upgrade-for-selected-pioneer-products-62222326.htm so clearly no special 'chip' is required. I doubt very much it is a technological limitation. For whatever reason, Spotify and Sonos cannot/will not reach an agreement for Sonos to do the same. Since Spotify get a premium subscription regardless, I fail to see why they wouldnt allow this.
None of that makes sense given the statement of Pascal du Mul. du Mul did not state that Sonos was severing ties with Spotify. He stated there is "no plan to extend Connect to Sonos and no plan to continue to develop with Sonos." Not "Sonos has no plans", not "Sonos and Spotify have decided to part ways", not even "no comment." He stated Spotify has "no plan" to either extend Connect or to continue to develop with Sonos. Half -baked retractions aside, no scenario you proposed can't account for that statement by du Mul.
Userlevel 1
You are wrong. There are arguments for the other side as well. See it this way: What Spotify is doing now is basically a copy of the Sonos principle. Music will be streamed via some Hardware and controlled via some multi-platform software. Image when Sonos heared about that plan. Do you think they were happy? Or is it also possible that they were angry about Spotify and therefore stopped working with them. Seems likely. Another possible explanation could be revenue-share: Maybe Sonos is participating with some cents in every Song that is played via the Sonos system. Now, if you play that song via the Sonos Software that makes sense. But if you could play directly via Spotify Software on your Sonos, I don't think that Sonos would participate. Therefore Sonos could have decided to not support Spotify Connect to force customers into using the Sonos Software, because of their revenue share. Of course we can guess a lot here and never know the reasons. But as you can see there are arguments for both sides of the table.
Userlevel 1
One more voice of a frustrated Sonos customer that owns 7 devices purely to stream Spotify across home and office. Yet another great hardware company writing horrible software and sticking to it. I use Sonos to stream music I find on Spotify, not the other way around. I want to interact with Spotify, not with Sonos. Please, stop wasting money on playing software catch-up with a software company - focus on making your hardware superior and accessible to every software interface out there - not writing it yourself.
Why would Sonos say no? Seriously, if you are going to speculate, you should have some type of logic behind it. As to why Spotify would edge Sonos out, try this logic: The traditional manufacturers are taking a hit from Sonos. Heck, Sonos just entered into AV, which is their bread and butter nowadays. These manufacturers have now entered into an exclusive contract with Spotify, and it is possible one of the stipulations of those contracts was Spotify does not partner with Sonos in regards to Spotify Connect. Now doesn't that sound more plausible than "whatever their reason?" In addition, Spotify has gone out of their way to require an encryption chip, ala Airplay, in order to secure their licensing to certain manufacturers and to encourage replacement sales. If Spotify wanted to take advantage of Sonos' current user base, they would never have required the chip, or they would make concessions for the current Sonos units. But they didn't. So what do we have here? We have the head of partnerships for Spotify stating unequivocally that they will no longer work with Sonos, then issuing a vague, bumbling retraction. We have Spotify entering into exclusive contracts with tradional A/V companies that are in direct competition with Sonos. And we have Spotify using a chip scheme which effectively locks out all existing Sonos devices. And you are saying it is Sonos who is refusing to work with Spotify? That truly boggles the mind.
Userlevel 3
Wait, so you really believe that Spotify went to start this new hardware initiative, and signed all of these manufacturers up, but didn't bother asking Sonos who they had partnered with for years? My impression is that they invited Sonos on the Spotify Connect bandwagon, and Sonos said no (whatever their reason). In which case, you should be selling your Sonos, not canceling your Spotify subscription.
Yes, also cancelled here. It's time to hurt them where it makes the most impression; for years we have been begging to make the integration with Spotify better and now Spotify just puts a knife in the back of Sonos. I truly enjoy the quality of my Sonos system and I'm not planning to sell my 3k+ system for inferior sound systems from ie. Phillips just because of spotify deciding to go active on the hardware market. It's like Apple would have sold songs first and then after 3 years would decide to only support specific players to play those songs. The other way around makes more sense: the manufacturer of the "player" chooses which content they allow, and so far Sonos has allowed as many content providers as there are in the market imho and now they get knifestabbed as Spotify sees what a success this has been... Right... 1 answer only: cancellation!
Userlevel 2
I think we should relax a little bit. I certainly will not sell my Sonos gear over this. The music streaming business is currently very hot and the competition is increasing every day. The mushrooming streaming services will have to differentiate themselves through streaming quality, social and hardware integration, usability, etc. in order to survive an inevitable consolidation in this industry. I am sure, there will be a satisfactory solution for us Sonos users outside the Spotify universe in the not so far future. If Spotify is arrogant enough to think they can drop their partnership with Sonos, let them do so. I for now have cancelled my Spotify subscription and currently on a trial with Rhapsody/Napster. I am very happy with this decision as it (unlike Spotify) allows me to discover new music through Sonos. I am hearing the streaming quality is sub-par compared with Spotify, but I am rather bullish this is not an unalterable state.
Finally some news from Spotifys' Pascal de Mul (Global head of hardware partnerships at Spotify) “Yes, we have made partnerships with a lot of hardware makers, but in taking stock of that, we’ve realized that it’s a time-consuming process that was only getting us into high-end devices, those where device makers felt justified in making the extra investment.” Spotify wants to target users buying devices at all price points, not just the most expensive ones. The other issue is that updates to these bespoke integrations were not easy. “All that stuff lagged in the innovation cycle. Every time we did something new it would take a while for it to come up in new devices.” What this means is that while these existing integrations can continue to be used with Spotify, they won’t work with the Connect service, and they won’t be updated with any other new features, either. The other important aspect of Spotify’s hardware strategy up to now has been tied up in its relationship with hardware makers that specifically make app-based systems. The biggest of these, and Spotify’s first-ever hardware partner, was Sonos. While Sonos has been a very important partner for Spotify, and de Mul described it as “very awesome,” he also noted that there is “no plan to extend Connect to Sonos and no plan to continue to develop with Sonos” longer term. Part of this goes back to Spotify’s intention to centralise and better control the experience on its service: with Sonos you control the music experience using the Sonos app, and of course Sonos only works with… Sonos, “and we want ubiquity.” ---------------------------------------------------- There is some update from Spotify PR asking TC to delete the comment about discountinuing developing with Sonos. However Pascal de Mul released the text earlier in this way until half a day later their PR spokeswoman called the stuff back with a note it would be out of context not commenting on it further or trying to replace it. Source: http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/02/spotify-makes-its-biggest-hardware-play-yet-with-spotify-connect-synching-music-at-home-and-beyond/
Streaming from the "little box" is the only thing Spotify Connect has in common with Sonos. What it lacks is quite important to the Sonos experience: A robust, redundant, and isolated wireless mesh architecture, and perfect syncing between devices. The mesh architecture is the reason Sonos is so reliable while all other streaming devices are susceptible to dropouts depending on how much usage is occuring on your WiFi LAN. Dropouts is the number one complaint of Airplay, and switching it from the phone to the device does not eliminate this. As long as one is reliant on the spoke architecture of your standard WiFI, reliability is in question. The second, perfect synching, only applies to those who use multi-room, but once you have experienced it, it is tough going back. As to Spotify Connect supporting it in the future, Airplay has the world's largest company behind it and they have not been able to mimic Sonos' sync in 3+ years (actually, in 9+ years, because Airtunes was launched in 2004). I laugh at Spotify being able to do it, especially across wildly differing partner platforms. Simply adding a Spotify chip does nothing to ensure your Denon receiver is going to be in perfect sync with your B&O speakers or your Yamaha soundbar. It would take a heck of a lot more cooperation between competing companies to achieve that (which is why the very limited sync on Airplay is so spotty). So admittedly, the Spotify UI is lacking, and that is important to you, so you should sell your gear. But for those of us who prefer reliability and multi-room over extended UI functions, the choice is just as easy (and a heck of a lot less expensive 😉 ) to keep our Sonos gear and find another service provider.
Userlevel 1
Spotify Connect is more Sonos then Airplay. The big difference between those services is that Airplay streams the music directly from the phone where else Sonos streams from the little box that is linked to the router. In my eyes this is the better solution which is why I chose Sonos. But hardware is only one side of the product, the other one is the Software (User Interface). Regarding that point Sonos is way behind Spotify or other Music player Software. So in conclusion: Either they redesign their UI or integrate Spotify Connect (I think that would be technical possible) or I am selling my Sonos and switch to Spotify. Multiroom is not important for me so far and is only a matter of time before Spotify supports that.
Userlevel 2
Thank you! According to this rather recent article, Rhapsody has around 20m tracks: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/03/rhapsody-napster-europe/ I think, I'll give Rhapsody a try. 192 kbps should be sufficient for my purposes.
MOG equals Spotify in streaming quality and has a much better Sonos interface, but it is US only. Rdio is in the EU, and exceeds Spotify interface-wise, but there is a question about the streaming quality. Rhapsody/Napster has less quality streaming (192 kbps) but the interface is far superior to Spotify. As for music catalogs, wiki gives the following: MOG 15,000,000+ Rdio 20,000,000+ Spotify 20,000,000+ Rhapsody - 11,000,000 as of 2011
Actually, Spotify Connect is a little bit different from that. From the specs I've seen, it is a little more like Sonos in that the actual component does the streaming, the phone/tablet is just a controller. You can also start streaming on the phone/tablet and then "pass off" the stream to a licensed component. However, it does not allow you to group components (no "Party Mode" synching) and it lacks the relibility and redundancy of the Sonos mesh. So it seems you get the same "glorified Bluetooth" functionality, without the battery drain on your phone/tablet. It also lacks a local library, access to other services, etc. that Sonos has. Unless the partner manufacturers are also Airplay licensed, it is truly a one-trick pony. Great for Spotify-only users, but those who are used to the full Sonos experience may be greatly disappointed.
Userlevel 2
+7
It certainly appears that Spotify Connect will allow streaming of the Spotify stream to a number of Bluetooth speakers... which seems to mean that you would then have your phone/tablet tied up with playing that stream. Sonos is working in a different way today, which does not tie my device to the hardware to continue playing music etc ... I am not sure that I would like that model to change 'just' to allow Spotify Connect. I don't see why both models could not still exist - assuming that the Spotify API still allows for it, and they don't remove current capability. I am sure that most Sonos owners are unlikely to ditch their current (relatively expensive) hardware in order to continue to use a (relatively inexpensive) music streaming service. If Spotify were to no longer offer any Sonos support/integration (which I personally doubt ... ) I am sure that other streaming services will continue to improve, to offer similar services that customers (us) have shown an interest for. Personally I use the third party Sponos app, which does what I want... but ties in my device to stream. I hope we will see some positive movement from both companies in the near future.
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