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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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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 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)
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 😞
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!
indeed an ipod via dock or line in is a potential workaround. However you would need to use the Sonos app to adjust volume and groups etc then the spotify app to select and change the music - it would be far better from within one app. a dongle type device would have the same drawbacks but if it had a digital output could be used to 'feed' the sonos system via my Playbar which would improve the sound quality at least 🙂
Ah, but if the dongle was produced by sonos it could feasibly control the zones as well, whether by add-in to the sonos software or better yet, the spotify side.
Confirmation that Spotify Connect requires a chip: "Spotify Connect will launch with ten hardware partners: Argon, Bang & Olufsen, Denon, Hama, Marantz, Philips, Pioneer, Revo, Teufel and Yamaha. Any wireless products from these companies with the appropriate chip inside will now be able to stream music via Spotify, which can be controlled from your smartphone or tablet's Spotify app." http://www.whathifi.com/news/spotify-connect-takes-aim-at-airplay-and-sonos
Please support this (4 play:3, 1 play:5, 1 connect, 1 sub user).
I recently pulled the trigger on two Sonos connects and don't regret it. We're a 100% windows family, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, Surface RT... I bought "Phonos" for our phones and it's cool, it lets me access stuff already set up on my services (pretty much) but it doesn't have the same capabilities as the PC AP. And I read poor reviews for the 3rd party RT apps. When it comes to music services we are a Spotify family. We LOVE it. Such an awesome pure focus on music. It pairs so well with Sonos and it would be fantastic to control it from the PC app, and ideally the Windows Phone 8 app too. That's my verbose version of this topic. I'm excited to see what comes and hope that Sonos and Spotify can continue to recognize for many families they are a perfect marriage. That along with some speakers and AMPs 😉
and not all of us are ipod/iphone users 🙂
Any update from Sonos here? I really think the Sonos Controller is falling behind in functionality.
It just clearly shows that this is known for a while XW-SMA3-K has been released in JUNE 2012 Others in March 2013 and later. So it can not be said that Sonos wouldn't have be able to know about it, when Pioneer over a year ago was already producing hardware that is able to acquire a certification. So either Pioneer knew way before (which I do not believe) or SONOS simply had this knowledge but kept on selling the hardware under false argumentation as delivering the best Spotify experience, knowing that this wont last for long. Lets see how SONOS reacts, else this indice might be a great cliffhanger for my lawyer to have all of my sonos equipment returned as they do false promises about product capabilities..
I've been watching this topic for some weeks and am frustrated as many writers that I can't use Sonos to interact with the full and excellent functionality of Spotify. I have Sonos in two houses and love it but am having a new affair with a piece of kit that gets around this problem and rivals Sonos quality, being a Bose Soundlink Mini. I feel guilty about this dirty little secret but I so want just to set a Spotify Radio session and enjoy it while i do a day's work. Come on Sonos.....stop my cheating ways and add Spotify radio.
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