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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Like anything else, I'm sure Sonos' decision on the Windows controller had more to do with market saturation than any campaign by Windows fans to flood the thread with 'likes'. As soon as the number of users hit critical mass, the trigger was pulled.
Get no official reply? Complain about no official reply. Get official reply? Complain about the reply itself. No wonder they don't say much about anything. *rolleyes*
There is an interesting thread on github where a developer quotes from a chat with a Spotify Connect developer:
On 10 May 2014 18:25, "Stein Magnus Jodal" <notifications@github.com> wrote:
I recently asked a couple of Spotify engineers about Spotify Connect, with especial focus on part three: Controlling mopidy through a spotify client as if it were just another "smart" speaker/amp.
This is what I learned
As Spotify didn't announce Sonos as partner for Connect, Sonos obviously can't integrate it for now.
On 10 May 2014 18:25, "Stein Magnus Jodal" <notifications@github.com> wrote:
I recently asked a couple of Spotify engineers about Spotify Connect, with especial focus on part three: Controlling mopidy through a spotify client as if it were just another "smart" speaker/amp.
This is what I learned
- The playing device (e.g. Mopidy) streams music directly from Spotify's servers.
- The controlling device (Spotify app on your phone) may be removed and the music will continue playing
- Spotify Connect is entirely custom. It has nothing to do with UPnP/DLNA, Qualcomm Allplay, Chromecast's DIAL, or similar
- Control is done through Spotify's servers, not directly over your local network
- There no special hardware required
- Eventually there will be a public SDK for Connect functionality
- Currently this SDK is only being distributed to Spotify Partners
- Reverse engineering the protocol is supposedly quite hard, so we're recommended to sit tight waiting for the SDK.
As Spotify didn't announce Sonos as partner for Connect, Sonos obviously can't integrate it for now.
People have been forecasting the death of Sonos for years, citing everything from Squeezebox, to Linksys, to Yamaha, to Airplay, to "lack of support for service XYZ" as the death knell. Yet Sonos is still going, and outpacing it's own sales every year. Methinks the obituary is a bit premature.
Sonos isn't a partner because they didn't want to integrate it.
Before having an official reply like this I prefer no reply. It's better to invest time to find a sufficient answer rather than keeping people posted with ready-made, meaningless text blocks. So it's about the quality of service, we're at a forum called "ask sonos" and most of us paid a lot of money for those devices. So service should be as premium as pricing. Consumers shouldn't accept less than that.
Userlevel 2
Just to add my voice. I currently have 5 sonos products. I use them exclusively with spotify. I am planning to sell them on ebay and move to another speaker system that supports spotify connect.
Sonos is a premium brand. When a USP of a brand gets lost over night you either rebuild or reposition your brand or you get killed by competition. Its important for consumers to express their feelings towards those things so Sonos can understand and set right priorities. It would be worse not to raise those points.
I have a Sonos Playbar and a Sonos Play 1. I like them, especially the Playbar for its sound. But I too are a Spotify user and the "support" for Spotify in the Sonos software is nothing but a joke. So because of that and because I dont like companies that apparently dont care about what their customers want and need, Im planning to sell the Sonos gear and buy something that do support Spotify Connect.
Sonos has dozens of service providers. Not supporting one single provider hasn't hurt them in the case of Google Music and/or iTunes iCloud, and their memberships dwarf that of Spotify. I'm sure Sonos has a contignency plan. Either way, there's nothing they can do about it, so shouldn't you be lobbying over at Spotify?
As everyone following this conversation already knows, the decision has been made not to implement Spotify Connect. Like many such decisions, it’s complex, and we don’t want to go into the details. To put it simply, we don’t see Spotify Connect as the right solution for Sonos at this time.
If you’re new to Sonos, you might not be aware that Spotify was launched on Sonos in 2010, and at the time was the first home hardware partnership for Spotify. We’re focusing our efforts on this existing integration, and began with improvements to stability under high usage following the holiday outages.
Our vision is to bring the Spotify-Sonos experience much closer to the experience you have when using the native Spotify app. It’s going to take time, but work is in progress by both partners. We’ll keep you posted.
No John, this answer is not what this community needs. Sorry to disappoint you, but we are expecting more from SONOS.
Try to listen to your users needs and solve their problems delivering value.
Currently, You're only delivering headaches instead of the best experience ever.
Spotify & Sonos are not so close anymore: http://spotifygear.com/
It's been years since the Spotify-SONOS experience doesn't evolve. So faith is not keeping us anymore.
Please give us a timeline and specify your priority list for user experience improvement.
We invest in you and we don't see any commitment from your side, but neutral answers.
We need your commitment. SONOS is nothing without the commitment of its users, so I'm not asking for something your users haven't gave your already.
Please, stop this kind of messages that doesn't say anything at all in the end.
And an equal number of people complain about a lack of any reply, and beg "Just give us an idea that you are looking into it!!!", which is what they have done. Besides, we all know that nothing short of total access to insider information which would violate SEC rules is going to satisfy any of the complainers here. Sonos is truly damned if they do and damned if they don't. And by the way, for a official reply with some meat, see the announcement of "Not Planned" status on Spotify Radio. Even a blind man can read between those lines.
As everyone following this conversation already knows, the decision has been made not to implement Spotify Connect. Like many such decisions, it’s complex, and we don’t want to go into the details. To put it simply, we don’t see Spotify Connect as the right solution for Sonos at this time.
If you’re new to Sonos, you might not be aware that Spotify was launched on Sonos in 2010, and at the time was the first home hardware partnership for Spotify. We’re focusing our efforts on this existing integration, and began with improvements to stability under high usage following the holiday outages.
Our vision is to bring the Spotify-Sonos experience much closer to the experience you have when using the native Spotify app. It’s going to take time, but work is in progress by both partners. We’ll keep you posted.
No John, this answer is not what this community needs. Sorry to disappoint you, but we are expecting more from SONOS.
Try to listen to your users needs and solve their problems delivering value.
Currently, You're only delivering headaches instead of the best experience ever.
Spotify & Sonos are not so close anymore: http://spotifygear.com/
It's been years since the Spotify-SONOS experience doesn't evolve. So faith is not keeping us anymore.
Please give us a timeline and specify your priority list for user experience improvement.
We invest in you and we don't see any commitment from your side, but neutral answers.
We need your commitment. SONOS is nothing without the commitment of its users, so I'm not asking for something your users haven't gave your already.
Please, stop this kind of messages that doesn't say anything at all in the end.
Userlevel 2
Thank you for pointing that out, Jgatie I think this announcement says it all... sadly.
We understand where you're coming from and we hear your point of view.
Sonos is committed to our partnership with Spotify. We love Spotify and we haven't stopped improving the Spotify experience on Sonos. As a recent example, in October of last year we added the ability to Star Spotify tracks direct from a Sonos Controller.
We have no plans to support Spotify Connect at this time, both parties have been upfront about this decision since the initial Spotify Connect announcement last year. We have not published the details of this decision for our own internal reasons (which I will also not get into).
You're welcome to share your opinion here and wherever else you wish, as well as to examine other options if that's what you'd like to do.
Thanks,
John
In other words, you are strongly committed to going out of business in the near future.
"We love Spotify and we haven't stopped improving the Spotify experience on Sonos."
You've done absolutely nothing to improve this particular experience recently, a year later, far as I can tell. Thus the grumbling on these forums, which you choose to disregard at your own peril.
You've chosen to push the burden on to your own consumers instead of rectifying what is an extremely obvious fix waiting to happen.
Wake up, Sonos. I've unfortunately already commited $ to you, which is absolutely the only reason why I remain a customer as of today. But you've lost my trust. Meaning I won't ever recommend the company to anybody else, and may soon decide to sell & reinvest in a different system in the very near future.
It seems to me that Spotify is at a crossroads in regards to Sonos support. If one is keen on keeping Sonos hardware and wishes to send a message to Spotify, the only message any corporation listens to is a loss of revenue. Cancelling a subscrition with "Abandoned the Sonos platform" given as a reason is the most effective step one can take. Posting here with continuous complaints to Sonos does nothing.
As everyone following this conversation already knows, the decision has been made not to implement Spotify Connect. Like many such decisions, it’s complex, and we don’t want to go into the details. To put it simply, we don’t see Spotify Connect as the right solution for Sonos at this time.
If you’re new to Sonos, you might not be aware that Spotify was launched on Sonos in 2010, and at the time was the first home hardware partnership for Spotify. We’re focusing our efforts on this existing integration, and began with improvements to stability under high usage following the holiday outages.
Our vision is to bring the Spotify-Sonos experience much closer to the experience you have when using the native Spotify app. It’s going to take time, but work is in progress by both partners. We’ll keep you posted.
Sonos, what is the timeline to bring Sonos close to Spotify's native app?
What virtually every Spotify user on Sonos wants are:
- Radio
Under "Browse""
- Charts
- Genres & Moods
- Discover
- New Releases (this is the only "browse" function currently supported by Sonos but "new releases" on Sonos are outdated content and do not match Spotify's most current "new releases" list)
Been hoping for something like Spotify Connect for a long time. Spotify's apps are so much better than Sonos', which makes much sense since Spotify only have to deal with their own platform but Sonos needs to have everything generic. This of course is a limitation. So I was hoping that Sonos would open up for easy control of zones and grouping of them via API, so that others like Spotify could control Sonos. Spotify came up with an even better solution (if grouping is included) but not having Sonos on the hardware list made my heart sink. I have 7 Sonos zones and peripherals. Would hate to upgrade the trusty Sonos hardware. So please Sonos, bend over backwards to get on that hardware list.
Not trying to defend Sonos or anything but Spotify are doing this to themselves. They are the most closed of all music services. Their success is going to be their downfall. The invention of Spotify Connect is another bad decisions that is trying to do do the "Apple" thing and lock you into their ecosystem.
I was a big fan of Spotify until sometime last year when I got some free trial for Google Access and Deezer and had some quality time with them. Spotify sounds the worst of all, after all these years, they are still in the process of upgrading their catalogue to 320kbps. Google Play sounds heaps better, Deezer is now offering FLAC. Spotify is the only music app that is not supporting Chromecast. Spotify is the only app that is not allowing offline downloading to SD card on Android devices. Spotify's app on Sonos is shocking, and I am willing to bet everything it is not Sonos who are to blame for that but the money grabbing bastards from Spotify. Just look at all the other Sonos apps even from the smaller guys in this music service business, they all look much more polished and fully featured.
And lastly, more and more artists are leaving Spotify because of their practices.
I was a big fan of Spotify until sometime last year when I got some free trial for Google Access and Deezer and had some quality time with them. Spotify sounds the worst of all, after all these years, they are still in the process of upgrading their catalogue to 320kbps. Google Play sounds heaps better, Deezer is now offering FLAC. Spotify is the only music app that is not supporting Chromecast. Spotify is the only app that is not allowing offline downloading to SD card on Android devices. Spotify's app on Sonos is shocking, and I am willing to bet everything it is not Sonos who are to blame for that but the money grabbing bastards from Spotify. Just look at all the other Sonos apps even from the smaller guys in this music service business, they all look much more polished and fully featured.
And lastly, more and more artists are leaving Spotify because of their practices.
Everything I've read about Spotify Connect says it allows you to switch from component to component, but no grouping of components.
Hey Sonos. I own 6 of your products. I'd love to own more. Make me love you and support Spotify Connect. Your competition is heating up:
http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/28/polk-omni-speakers-spotify-connect/?ncid=rss_truncated
http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/28/polk-omni-speakers-spotify-connect/?ncid=rss_truncated
Userlevel 3
Jgatie: Sonos provides support for the Spotify platform. The Spotify platform now includes Spotify Connect, so why shouldn't the hardware I've purchased continue to work with that platform? That Sonos also has a controller app and it's own goals for unifying a variety of music services is irrelevant to me, I bought _hardware_ that supports the Spotify platform. It's great that they continue to work on the Sonos app, but they also need to recognize that they ran ads for months on Spotify assuring users that the best way to enjoy the Spotify platform was through Sonos hardware.
Userlevel 7
+17
http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/28/polk-omni-speakers-spotify-connect/?ncid=rss_truncated
"manufacturers quickly started taking advantage of it" - Sadly, Sonos wasnt one of them !
Userlevel 3
Thanks for the response. I think we all understand very well where you're coming from. We'd like you to understand that we purchased hardware you advertised _on Spotify_ as the best way to enjoy the Spotify platform. That platform now includes Spotify Connect, and if you can announce a technical reason as to why you can't support Connect, then the ball is understandably back in Spotify's court. You need to be able to separate your app and music unification aspirations from the support you promised for the Spotify platform. Even if the Sonos app wasn't causing significant customer pain (was nearly as easy to use as the Spotify app), I would still expect to see the Sonos speakers receive an update that enabled them to work with Spotify Connect. It's just a matter of supporting the changing Spotify platform, and recognizing what is best for your users.
Rather than ponder what might be right for Sonos maybe a more relevant question to be asking yourselves would be "what's right for our users who have invested in our hardware"
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