Sonos HD Radio-My Review
As I finish my 30 day free subscription, wanted to jot down my quick thoughts on Sonos HD Radio and why I won’t be renewing (for now).
The biggest reason is cost/value. $7.99 is a lot for what you are getting (and not getting). To be honest if they would have offered an annual subscription for $59.99 I probably would have bought but not for almost $100. If I were to give it a grade: Overall B-; Value D+; Features B-; Selections B+; Ease of Use A.
My wife and I have listened to it all month (not using any other music services) to give it a fair shake. My kids use Apple Music exclusively so for them it doesn’t matter. Probably a half dozen stations we regularly listened to-Mellow Morning (every morning), Cruise Control, Mainstream, Pure Unplugged, Radio a Gogo, Rock Pantheon, Rock Road Trip, Alternative Energy; used Pink Noise/Rain every night to go to sleep; even the Holidaze to set up the tree and decorations. Sampled about a dozen others to try them out. Great stations, very different mix than similar stations on Apple Music, Prime Amazon Music, Sirius XM & Calm (which we also have). But, I can get something similar/close enough on services I already pay for (although Sirius XM is going away this month also). Most of these stations will go away when I cancel but some won’t which we can live with. Local radio is garbage so that’s a waste. Obviously things like these exclusive stations (which I can listen to for a few hours but then repeat so more like playlists), HD, commercials and skips are GREAT but not at that price. I had no technical issues at all in the 30 days, it was flawless and very easy to find and use-although a Most/Recent Used tab near the top would be helpful. I also felt there were some gaps in the music genres/options that maybe they will fill later with other stations-Sirius XM has a ton. Not being able to use it with my Move at work on Bluetooth was also a negative along with access outside of my home on my phone/watch; something that no other service has as a restriction with; again I could live with it at the right price point. Getting an Arc means that I would love to hear Dolby Atmos music but that’s not available either. Tagging songs to play later would be a great feature as well. Finally, no integration with Alexa (at least I couldn’t figure it out), it would always default to Apple Music.
If they address some of these I would definitely go back to it but for right now I will stick with the basic service and my other services. Being a huge Sonos fan I look forward to the opportunity to come back in the future.