sonos app as “standalone” streamer

How would this differ from using, say, Amazon Music on a mobile device, playing via Bluetooth or an aux cable to Sonos portable speakers? Are you suggesting using the mobile wifi as the connection from app/device to Sonos portable speakers? 

The Sonos app is a controller, and doesn’t stream any audio at all right now.  It also doesn’t store many of your system credentials, like logins to different streaming services.  Adding this feature would be a pretty big technical change.

I also don’t think many streaming services would allow Sonos to stream their service on a mobile app.  They want as much of the experience, audiio, features, etc, under their control as possible.  Sonos is a exception since there is no real way for streaming services to get that sort of control over the Sonos devices without going through the Sonos APIs and the Sonos app.

It should also be noted that Sonos would not likely be able to charge for this feature, and it’s not likely to bring in more product sales indirectly.  They also would not be able control whether the audio is played through non-Sonos speakers/headphones or the mobile device itself, since the OS is responsible for that.  

I get why a music streaming aggregator app, whether made by Sonos or otherwise, would be great for consumers, but it’s seems highly unlikely to happen anytime soon.

​@melvimbe In theory the sonos app could control what devices it puts out to as it already IDs the devices. It could lock down that it only streams to Sonos devices (eg.: Roam, Move, Ace … maybe Sonos Car Audio?) if those devices are connected.

Having access to Sonos Radio and the rest of the streaming services on the go as an aggregator would be a product differentiation factor in the audio market.

One can hope.

But the Sonos app itself doesn’t do any streaming, it only tells the Sonos devices where to look to get the data. As ​@melvimbe stated in his first sentence.

Changing the controller to be a streaming app would be a complete paradigm shift for the way Sonos works as a system. Absolutely everything would need to change. 

Since this would be “limited” to on-the-go portable devices (eg.: Roam. Move, Ace … maybe Sonos Car Audio if they can make it work in the future) the devices would be connected via bluetooth and streaming from mobile data giving access to Sonos Radio and the rest of the streaming services via one app on the go.

That’s why the original post is marked as a feature request :)

The recent SONOS units already support many, many dozens of services plus Bluetooth and AirPlay 2. With the addition of a travel router, these services can be available In the field. If the travel router supports a USB drive, locally stored tracks could be included.

Personally, I don’t care which App is supplying the music. I only care how many operations I must execute before I can play the desired music. In this context an “operation” is a click, touch, typed command, or spoken word. An advantage of voice control is that I don’t need to track down and startup some sort of controlling device — in my context this is an additional “operation”.

Also, a major reason I started using SONOS in 2005 was because it didn’t need any of my computer power to play music. Occasionally a computer, phone, or pad will crash or I’ll want to take it down, but the music continues. If the music was being played through that device, the music would go down with the device, then I’d need to execute a bunch of “operations” to restart the music at the point where I left off.

i suppose some individuals would appreciate a more convenient way to display album art on a large screen. A huge plus would be for the artist to provide a DOLBY ATMOS video of the track.

This doesn’t really resolve any of the issues/concerns I brought up. The app would need to be converted into a streamer, streaming service would still be reluctant or out right refuse to allow Sonos to do this, and Sonos doesn’t make any money from the deal.

Sonos Car audio sounds like a horrible idea in reality. Car manufacturers have upped the tech  in auts making it harder and more expensive to upgrade the audio, with less benefit.  Google/Amazon/Apple are busy bringing AI voice to your car.  Trying to way to be a controller in that space seems crazy.  Providing  speaker hardware  and perhaps tuning makes sense, but Sonos has said this is not the direction they want to go.

I think ​@buzz said it best.  It doesn’t really matter if you’re using an aggregate controller or not, it’s the number of steps you have to take to get there. 

Creating a separate app for Sonos Radio outside of your network makes some sense, but I don’t think Sonos really wants to do much with radio.  The service is run by Deezer and is really just a way to make some extra money off the brand name at this point (I don’t have a problem with that, that’s just what it is)

You are under the misconception that streaming content actually goes through the Sonos controller.  The content doesn’t go anywhere near the controller, the controller tells the Sonos units where and what to stream, and the Sonos hardware goes and gets them.  It would require a rewrite of the controller software to enable it to access the streams, and I doubt Sonos is going to rewrite their software so you can use their app with hardware they make no income from. 

​@jgatie I’m not under the misconsception. 👆AS WRITTEN above this is a FEATURE REQUEST.

Sonos will still be able to gatekeep/control everything by limiting it to their hardware (as they do now, which for the most part already has the requirements to stream the content directly) and they would be able to market it as an exclusive feature, therefore make money from it with a little to no developer cost. This would make the kneecapped Ace headphones (and possibly their whole portable lineup) able to stream Sonos Radio and rest of their services using only one app.

They are already supplying SONOS hardware to Audi: 

https://totallyev.net/audi-q3-audio-review-is-the-sonos-system-worth-it/

With the aforementioned app upgrade and connectivity via bluetooth, they would be able to supply content and interface as well :)

So you want them to rewrite the entire Sonos application to make it a streamer, but limit output to the Ace and/or portable units?  Uhhhh . . . OK.  I don’t see the advantage and/or the ROI, but . . . you are correct; it is a request. 

It’s a good feature request IMO.  
 

Sonos playlists on the go would be great.
 

Also Combining content from different sources to the queue has been the best feature for me with Sonos so having this on the go with a Move would be awesome. 
 

Yes, they helped designed the speakers and  the tuning, like I mentioned.  The did not build the UI, or build any sort of streaming source aggregator for Audi. 

Gatekeeping doesn’t work when the consumer can easily get around the gate.  Sonos gatekeeping for home audio only works because they own the rights to how audio is transmitted between speakers.  When you remove that ‘carrot’, you aren’t going to get people to pay more to use your gate.   And no, this is not a ‘little to no developer cost’ feature.  That’s just wishful thinking.

It doesn’t really matter anyway, because it’s unlikely that the major streaming service companies are going to license Sonos to use their service outside of the Sonos ecosystem, instead of using their own apps.  Seriously, the only reason I think Sonos even managed to act as an aggregator in the first place is the developed their technology and established customer base long before music streaming services (modern smart phones too) even existed.  It made no sense to create a streaming service and ignore that base.  Honestly, it wouldn’t even surprise me if Apple up and decided not to work with Sonos anymore, preferring their consumers just use airplay.  

This is an interesting point about Apple.
Unlike Tidal, Qobuz, Spotify etc., Apple Music is not natively supported on Sonos’s competitor systems like Wiim, Bluesound, Denon/HEOS and others.
Looks like Sonos is the only non-Apple streaming platform with natively integrated Apple Music.
Hopefully Apple isn’t going to abandon it in the near future.
Airplay isn’t actually a valid option for AM users on Sonos.