Adding to a playlist while away from home

Although I would like to be able to control my system remotely, playlists aren't really a top priority for me. If being able to adjust a playlist whenever and wherever you are, you are much better off using one of the many cloud services. And of course, you can then use playlist with sonos, your car, your phone, or wherever you happen to be.

Sonos is not going to spend the man hours to rewrite the app to add these functions for a request that has a mere 9 posts in over a year, and is easily accomplished by adding to a playlist within the service's app..

Pardon my candor, but that's a rather sophomoric answer. Of all the many thousands of Sonos users, probably only a very small percentage participate in this online forum, and fewer yet likely post a message here with their requests.

For the 9 posts in a year, one could easily assume there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other persons besides those 9 posters who feel the same way, and simply haven't voiced their opinions here.

I've been a Sonos user for years, and for years I've been wanting the ability to create Sonos playlists while offline (away from my equipment), and to be able to control my Sonos products remotely, yet I've never posted on this forum. I simply "grin and bear it." I have a friend who owns (what I consider) to be an inferior brand of a streaming music speakers, yet he's able to create playlists while offline (away from his house/equipment), and he's able to control his streaming speakers from a remote Internet location (without a VPN). He controls the speakers remotely for "security" purposes, i.e., to turn on the music when no one is home so that passers by think the house is occupied. This is a feature Sonos should adopt.

Creating playlists while away from your equipment is also something Sonos should adopt. I've had over 30 years' programming experience, and while it may be difficult at times to modify, or refine code to include new features, it's not rocket science. I didn't post this request until a business colleague asked if they could come to my office to have me help them create a Sonos playlist, but I had to answer that they could only do so from their home where they have their Sonos equipment. This shouldn't have to be the case. It's something Sonos should strongly consider adding if they want to remain relevant in the ioT streaming speakers space.

Regards.

Make that 13 posts in 2 years. And I stand by my analysis, "sophomoric" though it may be.

As far as remotely playing music, this is something you can do through the Alexa app right now. Of course, you can set alarms too.

As far as having an offline version of Sonos on the controller for updating playlists, it's not always as straightforward as you think. Obviously, you have to have a full index of your files and music services stored on the portable device. And the device must also be able to perform all the same search functionality that the sonos devices do.

And the additional assumption is that the playlist on your actual system hasn't been updated while you're out. What if the wife took out all the rock music for bubble gum pop while you were out...how is Sonos supposed to know how to integrate that one song you wanted to add? Anyway they do it, some customers won't like it.

And again, playlists on music services are really good at this already.

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For the 9 posts in a year, one could easily assume there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other persons besides those 9 posters who feel the same way, and simply haven't voiced their opinions here.


Or there could just be nine. Extrapolations like this are very much unreliable. I personally would assume that Sonos has a better idea of what features customers want, and how badly they want them, then we do through our speculations. And it's been 2 years, so what does that tell you?

Or there could be thousands. I'd very much like to know what information or other data you use as a reference in your rejoinder. I'm fairly sure Sonos had a great idea of what customers wanted based on market research, powerful analytics, and market offerings when they launched. Your relegation of customer feedback as inconsequential or irrelevant simply because the number of requests appearing on this particular website aren’t overwhelming (in your opinion) would be smug and presumptuous of Sonos (or any vendor for that matter). However, your insinuation that Sonos has done or implemented specific customer wants/requests/needs appears to be based wholly on speculation and the circular argument “because they haven’t done it yet, it must not matter.”

Furthermore, my reply wasn't based purely on my opinion, “extrapolation” or speculation, as you pointedly suggested. You attempted to bolster your statement by showing that because Sonos hasn’t addressed the requests in two years’ time, they must know better. In 2016 alone global shipments of WiFi speakers grew by nearly 62% (Strategy Analytics), and Amazon accounted for about 77% of that increase from the previous year. In 2014 Sonos accounted for about 50% of the WiFi speaker market, but the market share reports for Sonos 2016-2017 are dismal by comparison. If Sonos knew better than its customers what we wanted, shouldn’t the market share reflect that? To ask your own question: “What does that tell you?”

Whereas my comments were intended as constructive criticism for Sonos to remain competitive (because I really enjoy their products), your reply seems to indicate that customer opinion for improvement is superfluous unless it’s in the form of an overwhelming outcry. Basic business entrepreneurial theory has shown that for every single “Internet savvy” customer writing critical comments online, there are often likely exponentially larger numbers of “silent” disapprovers who, rather than comment and request improvements, simply switch brands to those which provide “what they want.”

Understand that I’m not advocating the validity of customer requests on the facetious notion of “we want it, therefore it must be good,” but I also don’t discount them either based on a low volume of duplicate requests; there might only a single request for something, but that doesn’t make it without merit.

Regards.