Support Spotify Connect to allow users to use the Spotify app as the controller.

  • 3 September 2013
  • 366 replies
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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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366 replies

Completely agree. The Spotify player is great software. The Sonos player sucks incredibly hard. Even small things are done badly: search, for instance. But the bigger point is: if I'm already using another application, don't force me to do everything again in yours just so I can use your hardware. Would not buy another Sonos speaker until this is sorted; would much rather go with something that is Spotify native.
Now that you can control Sonos from Google Music play, it seems a better fit to be able to control Sonos from Spotify Apps.
Now that you can control Sonos from Google Music play, it seems a better fit to be able to control Sonos from Spotify Apps.
The arrival of Sonos support within the Google play music app is what just made me cancel my spotify premium and switch to GPM All Access. I became fed up with Spotify trying to control the streaming business.
Hi I personally would really like to try Spotify Connect on my sonos speaker to see whether it js worth it or not, but my spotify app cannot find my play5, even after a firmware update. Could you advise me when spotify connect will work with sonos as integration was confirmed I think. At least I thought I read something like this in a forum. Thanks
This is an excerpt  from Sonos CEO  october 2013   its self explanatory,  
Chill out people they appear to be on top of the situation, but I would like to see the roll out in western countries now..  including Auatralia..

There’s no need for a Spotify speaker aisleOf course, Sonos isn’t the only one looking to bring connectivity to home audio. Veteran speaker maker Bose announced its own connected speaker system dubbed Soundtouch last week, but priced it above even the more expensive Sonos products. MacFarlane quipped that Bose could be the next Nokia, or RIM, and left it at that.

Then there are all those consumer electronics manufacturers from Bang & Olufsen to Pioneer to Yamaha that recently teamed up with Spotify to announce a new initiative called Spotify Connect that will bring Spotify playback capabilities directly to speakers of participating hardware vendors.

Asked about the Spotify initiative, MacFarlane told me: “They asked us to participate, and we didn’t.” He went on to argue that it made little sense to tie speaker systems to the brand of a single music service, joking that stores like Best Buy shouldn’t have separate aisles for Pandora speakers and Spotify speakers.

Next up for Sonos: Chromecast-like in-app-beamingSo what’s next for Sonos? MacFarlane was vague when asked about new products, but he told me a bit about how the company plans to make its existing products better. Music services will soon be able to add functionality to their apps that will let users beam music directly to Sonos speakers. This means that users won’t need to fire up the Sonos app anymore to launch their favorite radio station or playlist from the cloud. Instead, they will be able to simply press a “play on Sonos” button within the app of their favorite service, and launch music playback on their Sonos system. Think of it like Chromecast, but for your music.

MacFarlane told me that Sonos intends to make this functionality available on both iOS and Android. He wasn’t quite ready to share a timeline for the full launch of “play on Sonos,” but he revealed that Sonos quietly launched the feature in China earlier this year, where users of QQ’s audio streams can already make use of it. This means it’s only a question of time before it will also be available to users of western music services. https://gigaom.com/2013/10/14/sonos-releases-new-200-speaker-ceo-dismisses-spotifys-connect-speaker-...
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Hi folks, There's not much to say at the moment but we'd like everyone to understand where we're coming regarding the announcement from Spotify. Sonos is a platform for music lovers and we want Sonos customers to enjoy all the music on earth from whatever source they choose. We have an excellent partnership with Spotify which is, and will continue to be, an important part of many of our customers music listening experience on Sonos. Thanks for your continued support.
So Sonos won't implement the Spotify connect feature but are more than happy to allow Google Play music which allows the speaker to be controlled via the native Google Play Music app (Android only).

Bit of a turnaround from your statement 9mths ago Sonos?   You decline to support Spotify Connect yet here you are allowing the exact same thing on Google Play.  

Not sure if anyone else has noticed that Spotify isn't the main advertised 'platform' on Sonos but it's now Google Play.  First of all existing Sonos customers got 3 months free Google Play All Access and now for every new customer that purchases a Sonos speaker you get 6 months free!

Is Sonos going to be bought over by Google?  Either way you stated that you wanted customers to be able to enjoy music with whichever service they wanted to use.  I choose Spotify and would like to have the same functionality that you've offered Google Play customers.  
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so the ever growing list of other wireless streaming devices that work with Spotify Connect now includes the new Samsung range (see http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/09/spotify-now-handles-multi-room-streaming-on-samsung-devices/) along with the new Denon Heos, Panasonic Allplay, Jongo...

come on Sonos - you're no longer on your own and need to up your game
This is an excerpt  from Sonos CEO  october 2013   its self explanatory,  
Chill out people they appear to be on top of the situation, but I would like to see the roll out in western countries now..  including Auatralia..

There’s no need for a Spotify speaker aisleOf course, Sonos isn’t the only one looking to bring connectivity to home audio. Veteran speaker maker Bose announced its own connected speaker system dubbed Soundtouch last week, but priced it above even the more expensive Sonos products. MacFarlane quipped that Bose could be the next Nokia, or RIM, and left it at that.

Then there are all those consumer electronics manufacturers from Bang & Olufsen to Pioneer to Yamaha that recently teamed up with Spotify to announce a new initiative called Spotify Connect that will bring Spotify playback capabilities directly to speakers of participating hardware vendors.

Asked about the Spotify initiative, MacFarlane told me: “They asked us to participate, and we didn’t.” He went on to argue that it made little sense to tie speaker systems to the brand of a single music service, joking that stores like Best Buy shouldn’t have separate aisles for Pandora speakers and Spotify speakers.

Next up for Sonos: Chromecast-like in-app-beamingSo what’s next for Sonos? MacFarlane was vague when asked about new products, but he told me a bit about how the company plans to make its existing products better. Music services will soon be able to add functionality to their apps that will let users beam music directly to Sonos speakers. This means that users won’t need to fire up the Sonos app anymore to launch their favorite radio station or playlist from the cloud. Instead, they will be able to simply press a “play on Sonos” button within the app of their favorite service, and launch music playback on their Sonos system. Think of it like Chromecast, but for your music.

MacFarlane told me that Sonos intends to make this functionality available on both iOS and Android. He wasn’t quite ready to share a timeline for the full launch of “play on Sonos,” but he revealed that Sonos quietly launched the feature in China earlier this year, where users of QQ’s audio streams can already make use of it. This means it’s only a question of time before it will also be available to users of western music services. https://gigaom.com/2013/10/14/sonos-releases-new-200-speaker-ceo-dismisses-spotifys-connect-speaker-...


This is vapourware, Spotify Connect is real, the API's are there and have been for a year.
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Anyone who wants to get out of the Sonos ecosystem because of this situation, please send me a message. I will but your gear.

Not a Spotify fan. Prefer the Google system until lossless services launch later this year in North America.
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Sonos, 

Your official response from 10 months ago is: "There's not much to say at the moment"

Could you please update this response. I'm sure everyone following this thread would like to know whether or not the recently-added cast to Sonos functionality from the Google Play Music app means we will be seeing something similar in the Spotify app.
Hi folks, There's not much to say at the moment but we'd like everyone to understand where we're coming regarding the announcement from Spotify. Sonos is a platform for music lovers and we want Sonos customers to enjoy all the music on earth from whatever source they choose. We have an excellent partnership with Spotify which is, and will continue to be, an important part of many of our customers music listening experience on Sonos. Thanks for your continued support.
So we are 10 months on, and is there any update from Sonos w/ respect to using spotify?

I just purchased two Connects and a Play1 to replace two AppleTVs and an Airport Express.  I was assuming that given that it is frequently toted as a great device for spotify that it would actually support this and that I could either use their App or the Sonos App would give me reasonable access to Spotify, particularly connect and radio/random play. 

We will see, but it is appears likely that all of this will go back to BestBuy in 12 days.
Just bought a sonos connect after reading a lot on internet, but just not enough. Not posible to play from spottify app. Even now when i read on sonos site they are not fair to tell this clearly. Think im gona return the thing and look for the real thing …:(
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Just bought a sonos connect after reading a lot on internet, but just not enough. Not posible to play from spottify app. Even now when i read on sonos site they are not fair to tell this clearly. Think im gona return the thing and look for the real thing …:(
since you still have the chance to return it - vote with your feet.
Try the new http://www.amazon.com/Denon-HEOS-3-Wireless-Speaker/dp/B00KJJW36G instead which supports Spotify Connect.  Only by hitting them where it hurts may Sonos wake up.
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With the unreliability of the current implementation of Spotify on Sonos, it is absolutely absurd they are not going to support this.

I don't even know why I am posting this because it is not going to make a difference.
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What is even more irritating is that at the very beginning of Spotify Connext, I read specifically that Sonos didn't want to forge/display any specific partnership with any music service providers as their goal is to provide all the music of the world.

What I had understood is that they didn't want to give the wrong signal by taking the Spotify Connect path to other music services. This a defendable argument if it's correct.

What I don't understand is that a few months later, they worked alongside Google to provide a similar feature and is being said to be specific to Google Play Music, so there's a mixed signal being sent there?

Moreover, Spotify represents the largest subscribing users pool (10M paying users) and ever since they updated their app for the best, Sonos has been pretty much unusable (this one is on Spotify) but Sonos is being very reassuring about that.
Instead they continue to expend their music services support but most of the people are using the largest so what's the point? I think it's good but they should focus on fixing properly the services all users are using the most...
Sonos is great but the Spotify app is much better (and most importantly provides a number of features that the Sonos Controller doesn't). I understand that keeping up with the Spotify app (and the apps of other services) isn't possible but adding support for Spotify Connect would eliminate that problem.
I'm going to sell my Sonos 3 and I'm buying either a Denon HEOS 3 or a Libratone Zipp, Im sick of waiting, my wife and I only use our Sonos with Spotify and have the same complaints as everyone else in this thread.
Sonos is great but the Spotify app is much better (and most importantly provides a number of features that the Sonos Controller doesn't). I understand that keeping up with the Spotify app (and the apps of other services) isn't possible but adding support for Spotify Connect would eliminate that problem.
I couldn't have put this any better.  Well said Jens!  When will Sonos and Spotify work this out??  Spotify has the largest subscription of users and I'm sure everyone of those subscribers who own a Sonos system are longing to control their Sonos system via the Spotify App instead of the Sonos App.  Please Sonos listen to your users!!
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Sonos is great but the Spotify app is much better (and most importantly provides a number of features that the Sonos Controller doesn't). I understand that keeping up with the Spotify app (and the apps of other services) isn't possible but adding support for Spotify Connect would eliminate that problem.
Well said.  This is a crazy situation seemingly brought about by board room egos.  Im also now seriously considering the Denon Heos range for any new purchases.  Ive got a clunky workaround using Native Spotify App -> Airplay -> Apple TV -> Playbar then group with other players but it means the playbar cant be used for TV and other players Spotify at the same time (except via the terrible Sonos/Spotify integration).  Please dont anyone suggests Google Play - you cant cast from IOS and the app is very poor out and about on the mobile network.
As a heavy Spotify user I am considering the Denon Heos or Sonos speakers for my home. At first glance it appears that Heos supports Spotify connect out of the box along with airplay and Bluetooth and will integrate nicely with my existing wifi network. I also have all my music in iTunes albeit under the 65k limit some users gripe about. Sonos uses a different wifi system if not mistaken and requires a bridge? Airplay and Bluetooth isn't available either. I really want to support sonos since they were first to market and have more than 10 years experience in this market. I don't like copycats like samsung who are also entering this market with their N series. I like the sonos design better , no adapters or power adapters everything is built right in. The sound on the Denon was very impressive however the 3 speakers sounded great . At the end of the day what would you guys recommend? Is the Spotify connect a deal breaker? What would you recommend a pair of 3's or a single 5? SoYES or SoNos?
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Sonos will lose market share very quickly if they don't improve Spotify integration. Either allow Discovery through the Sonos app or allow push (connect) from Spotify app.
I have recommended Sonos to so many people, who now own it. HEOS for example is much more flexible. Why wouldn't you buy HEOS?
Just purchased Sonos. Nice system that now needs to be returned due to the Spotify limitations. 
LG have just released a wireless speaker system and Spotify Connect is supported from launch, meaning the Spotify app can be used in full. Shame that LG are getting it right and Sonos is getting it wrong. Sonos should be leading the way, not trailing the like of LG!
Hi folks, There's not much to say at the moment but we'd like everyone to understand where we're coming regarding the announcement from Spotify. Sonos is a platform for music lovers and we want Sonos customers to enjoy all the music on earth from whatever source they choose. We have an excellent partnership with Spotify which is, and will continue to be, an important part of many of our customers music listening experience on Sonos. Thanks for your continued support.
I've just read this statement about 5 times and I still can't work out exactly what you're saying. Can you at least say if Connect is/is not coming to Sonos.
I'm done with Sonos as long as they do not support Spotify Connect. I understand their fear: without their users using the Sonos App, they're just a hardware manufacturer and that's bad for revenue. But they have to realize this is a great move from Spotify. If Sonos deliberately misses this bus, all Spotify-oriented potential Sonos users are going to choose a Spotify-connect compatible speaker system ... and that's even worse for revenue.

Sonos, be wise, get on the bus. Or you are done being the 'best in-house audio streaming solution'. 

Spotify is real, Spotify Connect is real. Get over your pride and deal with it. Users are begging you to support Spotify Connect. Show them and potential customers that they are your first priority or get ready to lose even more market share than you will with supporting Spotify connect.