FULL spotify integration (and other 3rd parties)

I would prefer to control the music on my Sonos system with the Spotify App

You know there are two relatively strong technologies that are being hyped right now - streaming music and wireless speakers. I’ve spent three weeks with Sonos, Spotify, and a Heos speaker and really none of them do what I want. It’s quite disappointing. 

I’ve moved to Spotify as my main music platform, which means I discover, share, play music from their library, and I also host my own files on Spotify. I have play lists I regularly update that have both my own tracks and Spotify tracks. Yes, they have 30m tracks but that probably represents a 1/3 of the music out there and i have plenty of music I love to listen to regularly that’s not available on Spotify. 

Sonos and Heos are both great systems, seemingly. They both sound great. They can stream music directly to the speaker.

One of my most common use cases: play Spotify playlists on the speaker - doesn’t work if the play lists have local files on either system. Fail.

There is also the other many ways Sonos fails with Spotify, given that the app has so far out reached the sonos app. I’m often using the Spotify app for discovery - can’t do that in Sonos. I have dozens of saved albums and artists - Can’t see them in sonos. Can’t share from sonos. Etc. 

At least with Heos you can use the full Spotify app. But while Heos seems to work great once the queue is off and running, the app and platform seems buggy. The heos app often hangs or doesn’t see the speakers. But at least you can use the beautiful Spotify app (although that doesn’t do me any good for playing local files.)

One thing that does seem to work reasonably well is Deezer and Sonos. Deezer lets you upload your own files so they become part of their server library and can be streamed. All good there, except... of course there is an except. My family is on a Spotify family plan, so I have 4 premium accounts for $25/mo. To move to Deezer would cost me $60 and ask everyone else to use a different system. 

After doing extensive reading online, it appears that Spotify is withdrawing its support for Sonos and integration through it’s sdk, and pushing companies to support Spotify connect. It would be great to get a more comprehensive statement from Sonos about its direction with Spotify. 

One way or another I am going to return one of these systems, or both, in the next couple weeks. 

You know there are two relatively strong technologies that are being hyped right now - streaming music and wireless speakers. I’ve spent three weeks with Sonos, Spotify, and a Heos speaker and really none of them do what I want. It’s quite disappointing. 

I’ve moved to Spotify as my main music platform, which means I discover, share, play music from their library, and I also host my own files on Spotify. I have play lists I regularly update that have both my own tracks and Spotify tracks. Yes, they have 30m tracks but that probably represents a 1/3 of the music out there and i have plenty of music I love to listen to regularly that’s not available on Spotify. 

Sonos and Heos are both great systems, seemingly. They both sound great. They can stream music directly to the speaker.

One of my most common use cases: play Spotify playlists on the speaker - doesn’t work if the play lists have local files on either system. Fail.

There is also the other many ways Sonos fails with Spotify, given that the app has so far out reached the sonos app. I’m often using the Spotify app for discovery - can’t do that in Sonos. I have dozens of saved albums and artists - Can’t see them in sonos. Can’t share from sonos. Etc. 

At least with Heos you can use the full Spotify app. But while Heos seems to work great once the queue is off and running, the app and platform seems buggy. The heos app often hangs or doesn’t see the speakers. But at least you can use the beautiful Spotify app (although that doesn’t do me any good for playing local files.)

One thing that does seem to work reasonably well is Deezer and Sonos. Deezer lets you upload your own files so they become part of their server library and can be streamed. All good there, except... of course there is an except. My family is on a Spotify family plan, so I have 4 premium accounts for $25/mo. To move to Deezer would cost me $60 and ask everyone else to use a different system. 

After doing extensive reading online, it appears that Spotify is withdrawing its support for Sonos and integration through it’s sdk, and pushing companies to support Spotify connect. It would be great to get a more comprehensive statement from Sonos about its direction with Spotify. 

One way or another I am going to return one of these systems, or both, in the next couple weeks. 


Geoff,
thanks for the info.  Personally I use Spotify Connect via a Panasonic ALL1C connected to my Playbar (also with optical switch to change between TV and ALL1C).

It works great and I can group other Sonos speakers to play across the house.  Downside is having to use 2 apps when grouping or wanting to change individual volumes (there is an overall volume control using Spotify Connect volume within Spotify app).
Also, the 'Music' setting using the Playbar and rear speakers to give 'Full' music output from all speakers doesnt work as the Playbar assumes its playing a programme or movie and not music.  I have to remove the surrounds from the playbar then group them if I wish to have the same levels from the Playbar and the surrounds.  A bit tedious.

Anyway, I was curious about your statement "After doing extensive reading online, it appears that Spotify is withdrawing its support for Sonos and integration through it's sdk, and companies to support Spotify connect. It would be great to get a more comprehensive statement from Sonos about its direction with Spotify. "

Do you have a link to support the above ??  This means that, unless Sonos support Connect, they will lose the ability to play Spotify altogether !  Whilst I have a workaround (also great when the rest of 'Spotify on Sonos' experiences one of its many outages), many will not, so be left high and dry with nothing if this proves to be true.  Is there any timing on this withdrawal of this sdk ?

Nick

I am trying Google Play Music. Seems to be quite the same of Spotify with a more Sonos friendly App

You know there are two relatively strong technologies that are being hyped right now - streaming music and wireless speakers. I’ve spent three weeks with Sonos, Spotify, and a Heos speaker and really none of them do what I want. It’s quite disappointing. 

I’ve moved to Spotify as my main music platform, which means I discover, share, play music from their library, and I also host my own files on Spotify. I have play lists I regularly update that have both my own tracks and Spotify tracks. Yes, they have 30m tracks but that probably represents a 1/3 of the music out there and i have plenty of music I love to listen to regularly that’s not available on Spotify. 

Sonos and Heos are both great systems, seemingly. They both sound great. They can stream music directly to the speaker.

One of my most common use cases: play Spotify playlists on the speaker - doesn’t work if the play lists have local files on either system. Fail.

There is also the other many ways Sonos fails with Spotify, given that the app has so far out reached the sonos app. I’m often using the Spotify app for discovery - can’t do that in Sonos. I have dozens of saved albums and artists - Can’t see them in sonos. Can’t share from sonos. Etc. 

At least with Heos you can use the full Spotify app. But while Heos seems to work great once the queue is off and running, the app and platform seems buggy. The heos app often hangs or doesn’t see the speakers. But at least you can use the beautiful Spotify app (although that doesn’t do me any good for playing local files.)

One thing that does seem to work reasonably well is Deezer and Sonos. Deezer lets you upload your own files so they become part of their server library and can be streamed. All good there, except... of course there is an except. My family is on a Spotify family plan, so I have 4 premium accounts for $25/mo. To move to Deezer would cost me $60 and ask everyone else to use a different system. 

After doing extensive reading online, it appears that Spotify is withdrawing its support for Sonos and integration through it’s sdk, and pushing companies to support Spotify connect. It would be great to get a more comprehensive statement from Sonos about its direction with Spotify. 

One way or another I am going to return one of these systems, or both, in the next couple weeks. 


Thanks - I read an article about the Spotify connect announcement in which a Spotify exec made specific statements about not investing in apps that integrate with Spotify and specifically mentioned Sonos. There was an update to the article that had a retraction, but I interpreted as a momentary inadvertent telling of the truth. I don't have the link but if I see it again I'll post it here. I don't think it means they will stop supporting the sonos connection as it is, but perhaps not invest in developing the api to support new features. That was my impression. 

I am very deceived by Sonos. Spotify is not really integrated (no access to "my music", albums, etc.) in their system and the interface is very poor in comparison to Spotify one. I would not recommand sonos to spotify users. 

I think they are both contributing to the issue. Spotify is focusing on Spotify Connect, which is at odds with the design approach Sonos has taken.

I've been using Google Play and am very happy with it so far. It does everything Spotify does and in some cases better and the integration with Sonos is decent. (The equivalent of "Your Music" is supported in GP and also local files.) Although Songza is integrated into Google Play, GP's Songza functionality isn't in Sonos at this point, so I use Sonza in Sonos too - both work well. 

My understanding is that Sonos Spotify integration is limited due to Spotify not providing access to some features through their API:
https://community.spotify.com/t5/ideas/v2/ideapage/blog-id/ideaexchange/article-id/16743/

Ideally I'd like to use Spotify's own app and send to Sonos through Spotify Connect. I expect Sono's could easily add this feature with a software update but it's probably being stalled by Spotify/Sonos failing to agree / still negotiating terms. 

Wow. Just came across this thread. Two years old... Who said technology moves fast?! Proper Spotify/Sonos integration remains a no-go whilst the stare-off continues. Who will blink first and risk satisying customers?!

I just bought several Spotify Connect-enabled multi room speakers (http://spotifygear.com/type/wifi-speakers/), and I might just dump Sonos entirely in the future. Technology does move fast, and it's leaving Sonos behind.