Sonos steals my music when I'm on the road

Yesterday I tested it, but with 2 changes.  I changed the source for all my Sonos speakers to not be Spotify.  But I also found a setting in Spotify under Settings → Devices → Show local devices only which I turned on.  It says “Only show devices on your local WiFi or ethernet in the devices menu”.  My music wasn’t stolen on my ride after doing these.  Next time I will try leaving a speaker on Spotify.

At home, are you playing Spotify from the Spotify app or the Sonos app?  Spotify Connect (i.e. using the Spotify app) has a well documented “feature” by which it makes a cloud connection between the Spotify app and a speaker on WiFi that persists after the controller leaves the network.  This is entirely a Spotify issue and would happen with any networked speaker that is Spotify Connect enabled, not just Sonos.

This Spotify “feature” can cause no end of problems, such as guests who have left a friend’s house accidentally blasting music into their friend’s house when trying to play music on their phone.

This id entirely a Spotify issue and so please can we stop this absolute nonsense about “Sonos steals my music”.

I’m using the Spotify app.  I’m just trying to use the Sonos as a speaker, not a sound ecosystem.  I’m not so sure that “well documented” is correct as I did a lot of searching for Spotify speaker issues and didn’t find any such documentation.

Sure, if they accidentally leave it connected.  But in my case, I had told Spotify to play through my bluetooth, and then it would change to Sonos spontaneously.

From my perspective, Spotify worked fine until I introduced the Sonos speakers, so it is appropriate to suspect the speakers first.  However, it seems that the unusual connection between Spotify and Sonos is the problem.  I would hope that both companies would work together to solve the problem rather than just wanting to point the finger at the other company.

Well, if Sonos and/or Spotify is “Stealing” your music..all I can say is…

Lock ‘em up, Lock ‘em up, Lock ‘em up 😂

@Acuff .  Here is a CNET article referring to this feature:

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/spotify-connect-what-is-and-how-it-works/

Note the comment:

Keep in mind that all compatible devices on the network, plus ones you have previously logged into around the world, will appear in the list. This means if you really want to mess with your pets when you're away from home, you can.

The Sonos speakers are networked speakers and the cloud connection between Spotify app and speaker can only be created when the two devices are on the same network.  Without the connection, no switch back to home speakers, whether deliberate or accidental, could take place.

Note that this does not explain my problem, which is the sound spontaneously (ie., with no input from me) changing to the Sonos speakers when I was away from home.  That’s a bug.  Being able to access the speakers remotely could be useful, but it is not appropriate to just switch the music to them away from the chosen connection.  Sonos and Spotify should work to correct this.  They probably won’t.

Hi @Acuff and all.

As @buzz and @John B have explained in this thread, this is a Spotify feature. When you use Spotify Connect, it will allow playback to network devices directly from the Spotify app. This connection between Spotify and Sonos will remain in place until the session has ended and this behavior is largely the same on Sonos as it is with other third-party speakers.

Why the speaker swaps back to Sonos is due to Spotify remembering this connection and trying to re-establish said connection.

To prevent this, the following are ways to break this connection and stop the source of your Spotify playback from changing:

• Start playback from another music service or source, such as Local Library, Toslink, Apple Music, Sonos Radio, etc.
• Group a player registered with Spotify Connect with another speaker.
• Trigger an alarm on the player registered with Spotify Connect.
• Select END SESSION from the Sonos Controller in that player's Queue.

The session will also be ended if the player registered with Spotify Connect loses cloud connection or is rebooted, but I wouldn’t recommend these over the points above. 

I hope this information helps!

Jaime,

Thanks, but this does not explain the problem I have.  I have told Spotify to play to my bluetooth, which clearly means I don’t want to play to Sonos any longer.  Something about the interaction between Sonos and Spotify makes the connection change back to Sonos when that is clearly not the right thing to do.  This is an error and should be fixed.  It isn’t clear if the problem is with Sonos or Spotify, but they should work together to fix it.  Telling me how to work around the error is kind of you, but it should be fixed.  However, note that the setting I found in Spotify (described in my comment above) is a better work around.

@Acuff,

If you take a look at the screenshot attached to my last post, you will (hopefully) see the two types of device connection, as can be seen/viewed in the Spotify App.

You need to ‘break’ the API connection by reverting its playback to your sending device (the iPad in the example shown in that screenshot).

Once that’s done, the Spotify App will then play the Spotify audio-out to the mobile/iPad instead and that in-turn redirects/outputs the playing audio to the Bluetooth connected device (the Sena 30K0 headset in your case).

The Sena headset is actually BT paired to your mobile device and not to the Spotify App… hence you will (always) need to disconnect your Sonos speaker. So it seems to me there isn’t anything to fix here, but it’s perhaps more about understanding how each of the connections work to the different playing devices.

I hope that explanation helps.