Support Spotify Connect to allow users to use the Spotify app as the controller.

  • 3 September 2013
  • 366 replies
  • 41411 views

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Spotify Connect was just announced and I was surprised that I didn't see Sonos in the list of companies that would provide support. Many Spotify users have been asking for a long time to be able to use the Spotify app as the controller for selecting songs, as it provides a superior experience (you still can't even see the Top 5 songs in the Spotify view within the Sonos app, and it is difficult to look through an artist's collection to find a specific song unless you know which album it was in). Please support spotify connect. Additional details on Spotify Connect are here: http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/3/4688166/spotify-connect-launches-to-stream-music-to-compatible-speakers If you look at the post on theverge, even the first comment was one asking for Sonos support for the feature.

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366 replies

Hi folks, There's not much to say at the moment but we'd like everyone to understand where we're coming regarding the announcement from Spotify. Sonos is a platform for music lovers and we want Sonos customers to enjoy all the music on earth from whatever source they choose. We have an excellent partnership with Spotify which is, and will continue to be, an important part of many of our customers music listening experience on Sonos. Thanks for your continued support.
All I want is to play spotify with all of its features, especially radio, with my new Sonos play-1. Apparently this is impossible. From what I have read, I have to buy a Play-5 ($400), plus an airport express ($40) to do this... This speaker system just went from $200-->$640 for it to do what I want. Very disappointed that Sonos and/or Spotify can not figure something so simple out. Sonos, drop this app that does nothing but make your "valued customers" take extra, tedious, steps to listen to music. I want to play my music from my actual itunes library as well as my spotify app, not through your app...  Airplay for all speakers please!! You have a lot of disappointed customers that are returning your speakers, I am one of them.
Userlevel 2
Keep Calm and Carry On. Like other Sonos users, I have been watching this post for a few months to see the outcome.  This is a very long post and my apologies upfront.  A quick background:

1)    I originally purchased 4 Sonos zones for a prior home seven years ago and grew that to seven zones. I migrated all the hardware without a hitch – granted I went into new construction on the next home so installing built-in speakers was nominal in cost but have already paid for themselves given the use case of a turnkey 7 home zone setup.  I do not own any of the speaker products (Play, Playbar, etc.).

2)    I am in the hardware/electronics technology community and talk to multiple industry participants, mostly on the supply chain and components end of companies like Sonos, but also have contacts in the recording industry.  I have spent a fair deal of time over the last several years trying to understand where this industry is heading. Especially since Sonos was the first bona fide example of “the Internet of Things” and it a useful template for where other industries/companies might be heading that offer IoT products.

3)    Though I have met folks at Sonos at trade shows and similar circumstances in the past, I have no strong ties to the company nor am I some blog plant for them.  Candidly, I dislike these cyber threads because it brings out the shameless narcissism of the loud minority, but nonetheless I wanted to share my opinions on this matter to offer some balance to this thread.

4)    Like many of you I made the switch to Spotify about a year ago as it was the most feature rich service on the market.  I even ported all of my Rhapsody playlists (an arduous task) to Spotify.  I also was using Pandora for streaming so I thought I could centralize everything.  Much like you, I found out this was not going to be the case for streaming on Sonos (no Radio is my gripe) and I only have myself to blame for not doing more research ahead of time.  I ultimately reactivated my Rhaposdy account and am now in somewhat of a limbo, waiting for clarity.

5)    Per Spotify, I have to say that I am not a big fan of the interface and since I am not a “social” web 2.0 kind of user, (no Farcebook account here) those features are useless to me and if anything, I would probably find them distracting.  However, I will note that other services have great interfaces but are lacking other features.  Rdio, for instance, would be an example of this.

After outlining all of this, so that all of you know where I am coming from before I get skewered online here, I really don’t view lacking support for Spotify connect as a game changing situation for me and probably for most of you.  Here’s why:

1)    Spotify is an outcast in music services game.  Granted, they got the social aspects of the product down but the recording industry treats them with indifference at best but more or less isn’t happy with them because of compensation issues (not good). Culturally they are an odd company to deal with being from Sweden (i.e. not the US, I love Sweden fwiw) and there is an arrogance here that, at least in my view, will be their demise.  I truly believe in a few years the term “Spotify followers” will be next to “AOL keyword” in the history books.

2)    Spotify Connect is an inferior product.  Anyone that has fiddled with Airplay knows this is not a substitute for Sonos (that that was Apple!) and despite more centralized features akin to Sonos, it simply won’t work as well.  Why?  Because every manufacturer is different.  Open standards only take this so far in consumer electronics. Take remote controls.  Standards have been around for years for all these guys yet all of them are just “not right” with interoperability.  Enough so that there is a major industry at work integrating them (eg Logitech) and doing a better job as a middleman. This analogy isn’t a great one, but the point here is that any incremental cost to a product (in this case a $0.25 chip) that has a 15% gross margin (if they are lucky) is going to be met with resistance.  And spending incremental R&D $s to have it work seamlessly and tested across others?  No way.  Plug in the chip, put the “connect” logo on the box and move on.  In the end, the consumer will be disappointed.

3)    The cost argument doesn’t hold water.  Granted, Sonos is expensive.  But can any of you with a straight face actually expect a budget minded customer to by a B&O A9 sound discus/tripod for their studio apartment (at a mere $2700)? Or get excited about a Pioneer receiver to stream your music? Seriously, these are partners to get excited about? The best part about Sonos is that you are free to purchase your own speakers, receivers, etc. And Sonos is already moving downstream on the price point.  The Play:1 was a brilliant counter attack by Sonos on all these smaller connected technologies.  For the price of a Jambox (a great, albeit limited product that I own as well), Sonos can get a beachhead with newbie users (they threw in the Bridge for free for a while). Soon I expect a rechargeable Play speaker (like a Jambox) will be offered.  Many in the industry saw the Playbar product introduction as the first legitimate mainstream beachhead into the home.  It has been very successful for Sonos and there is a lot of momentum here.

4)    Spotify is in a crowded market.  I won’t get into all the music services that exist out there but I will grant Spotify a first mover advantage on the social media front. However, the recording industry is absolutely jacked about the upcoming Beats streaming service that will be coming out later this month and you are kidding yourself if you don’t think that will gain critical mass overnight.  Anyone that can sell an inferior $50 headphone for $200 because of branding should be taken seriously. Oh, and they “get” the record labels. My prediction isn't that Beats will be the winner.  Rather, there will be many, many legitimate threats to Spotify.  To assume it will be the clear winner a year from today is shortsighted and presumptuous.

5)    Watch Qualcomm.  The only legitimate substitution threat to Sonos hardware in my view (not the firmware end ecosystem, mind you) is the technology that Qualcomm has unveiled (AllPlay, on the AllJoyn protocol) which will get wide support in the consumer electronics industry later this year.  That being said, I still think it will be an uphill climb given point #2, above though Qualcomm has infinite resources relative to Spotify, and begs the question why any CE manufacturer would waste their time with Spotify Connect with this technology coming down the pike in less than a year.

In summary, I personally don’t think either company needs each other to be successful, but I will say that Sonos has a much less to lose than Spotify.  To think these companies are mutually inclusive for their survival is to be blind to the realities of the streaming music industry.

My final point is as a user for seven years I have never had to scrap a single dollar invested in Sonos.  I even have two original remotes that still work, though the internal batteries have finally started to falter.  But I only use one as a backup to the smartphone remotes that are easier to use (this was also a brilliant foresight by Sonos – creating an app for their remote).  All of the zones are updated, have durable firmware and were built to last.  I honestly can’t say how much upgrading (and disposal) of consumer electronics I have burned through (CD players,  DVD player, video “component” cables/receivers, video game consoles, etc.) over the last 10 years and there is my Sonos equipment, standing the test of time, even through a move.  If you want quality hardware to stream your music that works seamlessly and gives you the flexibility to make changes (upgrade speakers, interoperability, etc.) I can’t say enough good things about my investment in Sonos.



Update here - I am tooling around with Beats Music right now.  I will give it a few weeks but already I can see this being a service that will give Spotify (and others) a run for their money.  In three years Spotify won't be able to give away their Connect API layer. 
Hi folks, There's not much to say at the moment but we'd like everyone to understand where we're coming regarding the announcement from Spotify. Sonos is a platform for music lovers and we want Sonos customers to enjoy all the music on earth from whatever source they choose. We have an excellent partnership with Spotify which is, and will continue to be, an important part of many of our customers music listening experience on Sonos. Thanks for your continued support.
I don't particularly care if you bring your own app up to the level of Spotify's or implement Spotify Connect so I can use theirs, I just want to have a way out of using your currently abysmally tedious app. 
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Hi folks, There's not much to say at the moment but we'd like everyone to understand where we're coming regarding the announcement from Spotify. Sonos is a platform for music lovers and we want Sonos customers to enjoy all the music on earth from whatever source they choose. We have an excellent partnership with Spotify which is, and will continue to be, an important part of many of our customers music listening experience on Sonos. Thanks for your continued support.
I too bought into the Sonos ecosystem: Bridge + Play 5 + Play 1.

I was seriously considering buying the (overpriced) Connect Amp, but I am not going to do it until I see that Sonos gets more responsive towards customers and more offensive regarding innovation & feature upgrades. 

Get your act together, Sonos. I don't think you realize how damaging these complaints are for your reputation and image. 
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Hi folks, There's not much to say at the moment but we'd like everyone to understand where we're coming regarding the announcement from Spotify. Sonos is a platform for music lovers and we want Sonos customers to enjoy all the music on earth from whatever source they choose. We have an excellent partnership with Spotify which is, and will continue to be, an important part of many of our customers music listening experience on Sonos. Thanks for your continued support.
And I totally agree with one of the commenters who complained about official rep John writing a meaningless reply that has no substance whatsoever.
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Start taking your involved customers seriously.
Hi folks, There's not much to say at the moment but we'd like everyone to understand where we're coming regarding the announcement from Spotify. Sonos is a platform for music lovers and we want Sonos customers to enjoy all the music on earth from whatever source they choose. We have an excellent partnership with Spotify which is, and will continue to be, an important part of many of our customers music listening experience on Sonos. Thanks for your continued support.
It's been 6 months since the official response... I bought my first Sonos system today (Play 5), on the basis I could use Spotify with it, I asumed it would support Spotify Connect as Bose does, feeling pretty cheated if i'm honest.

What is the current status of this? is it even planned to be supported? I can wait for it if it's coming soon but if it's not even planned I think that says a lot about the attitude towards customer satisfaction and recognising your customers needs, so i'd be returning the product and buying the Bose instead.
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Hi folks, There's not much to say at the moment but we'd like everyone to understand where we're coming regarding the announcement from Spotify. Sonos is a platform for music lovers and we want Sonos customers to enjoy all the music on earth from whatever source they choose. We have an excellent partnership with Spotify which is, and will continue to be, an important part of many of our customers music listening experience on Sonos. Thanks for your continued support.
*knock, knock*
Is John home? 
Hi folks, There's not much to say at the moment but we'd like everyone to understand where we're coming regarding the announcement from Spotify. Sonos is a platform for music lovers and we want Sonos customers to enjoy all the music on earth from whatever source they choose. We have an excellent partnership with Spotify which is, and will continue to be, an important part of many of our customers music listening experience on Sonos. Thanks for your continued support.
Sonos is in bed with Beats Music and I don't think they care a whit what happens with Spotify. I am furious that I spent so much money on a system that does NOT do what it promised. I did try Beats Music and it is AWFUL. I actually like Google Play All Access, and there is an app you can download that lets you use Sonos with that. So for those of us stuck with a Sonos system, Google Play with Macronos Cast is the best solution. 
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Hi folks, There's not much to say at the moment but we'd like everyone to understand where we're coming regarding the announcement from Spotify. Sonos is a platform for music lovers and we want Sonos customers to enjoy all the music on earth from whatever source they choose. We have an excellent partnership with Spotify which is, and will continue to be, an important part of many of our customers music listening experience on Sonos. Thanks for your continued support.
I really would like to see a serious answer from Sonos.
One that contains substance and addresses the issue. 
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Hey Sonos, I am ready to spend some hard earned money on expanding my Sonos system, but only if you can come up with some proper answers. 
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Until that time, I will keep that money in my pocket or, worse, may sell the Sonos system I just bought and buy into Bose. 
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Hi folks, There's not much to say at the moment but we'd like everyone to understand where we're coming regarding the announcement from Spotify. Sonos is a platform for music lovers and we want Sonos customers to enjoy all the music on earth from whatever source they choose. We have an excellent partnership with Spotify which is, and will continue to be, an important part of many of our customers music listening experience on Sonos. Thanks for your continued support.
Nick, is it just this thread or are customers turning their backs on Sonos? 
Judging from this topic, Sonos seems to make an arrogant, slow impression to me.
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Hi folks, There's not much to say at the moment but we'd like everyone to understand where we're coming regarding the announcement from Spotify. Sonos is a platform for music lovers and we want Sonos customers to enjoy all the music on earth from whatever source they choose. We have an excellent partnership with Spotify which is, and will continue to be, an important part of many of our customers music listening experience on Sonos. Thanks for your continued support.
I'm with you guys, even tough Sonos has worked a lot with Spotify in order to bring a good experience of the service inside the Sonos app they'll never beet a dedicated application that is receiving constant updates and improvements. Some people that have the Play 5 use a Apple Airport Express that you can find for 40 dollars on Craigs and then use Airplay to adress the Play 5 directly from the Spotify App. 
One thing we have to admit is that Sonos is not only meant to address a single speaker. But a set of speakers in  different zones. All that works within the Sonos app and won't really working in direct connect. It's not what Sonos really is.
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Hi folks, There's not much to say at the moment but we'd like everyone to understand where we're coming regarding the announcement from Spotify. Sonos is a platform for music lovers and we want Sonos customers to enjoy all the music on earth from whatever source they choose. We have an excellent partnership with Spotify which is, and will continue to be, an important part of many of our customers music listening experience on Sonos. Thanks for your continued support.
Im sure the majority of customers are very happy with sonos but they arent so likely to come on a forum like this and tell you that ! The majority of comments you will read here are therefore from people with a problem or issue with Sonos.  Spotify integration is very poor in Sonos compared to the native Spotify client.  I think the same is true of all the music services and Ive tried as many as I can where I am (UK).  If Spotify is what you always listen to and you are not so interested in multi-room then, if I was in your shoes, I would return your Sonos and go for a Bose or other device that support Spotify Connect.  Unfortunately its too late for me for that now.  I bought into Sonos when I used my own music collection and in that regard the Sonos app is OK.  However, times change and music services are the future and Sonos really need to sort their app out or allow others apps to play directly to Sonos speakers.  Unfortunately since Sonos refused to play ball with Spotify over Connect, I dont think Spotify will be very interested when Sonos come to them with their 'Play on Sonos' idea.
this might be of interest also http://forums.sonos.com/showthread.php?t=36038
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Hi folks, There's not much to say at the moment but we'd like everyone to understand where we're coming regarding the announcement from Spotify. Sonos is a platform for music lovers and we want Sonos customers to enjoy all the music on earth from whatever source they choose. We have an excellent partnership with Spotify which is, and will continue to be, an important part of many of our customers music listening experience on Sonos. Thanks for your continued support.
Yeah, I know. Thx for the link by the way.
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Still, it is weird that as a user I wish to use my Sonos system via the Spotify app. Apparently, the Sonos app falls short in terms of user experience compared to the Sonos app.
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As mentioned by other commenters, if Sonos promises a best user experience with Spotify, then they should keep delivering on it. Yet, there seems to be little movement on the side of Sonos.
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Something tells me that Spotify has outgrown Sonos and Sonos is no longer the alpha male in streaming audio hardware. 
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To cope with the current shortcomings of the Sonos app (re. Spotify app) I have now connected a bluetooth streamer to my Play 5 so that I can use Spotify Discover and/or Spotify Radio to easily search & scan for new music.
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Because, really, saving stuff from Spotify into a playlist and then playing it from Sonos (or, alternatively, switching to Sonos and searching for stuff discovered in Spotify) is NOT considered to be user friendly. Not in 2014 (or 2013 for that matter).
Hi folks, There's not much to say at the moment but we'd like everyone to understand where we're coming regarding the announcement from Spotify. Sonos is a platform for music lovers and we want Sonos customers to enjoy all the music on earth from whatever source they choose. We have an excellent partnership with Spotify which is, and will continue to be, an important part of many of our customers music listening experience on Sonos. Thanks for your continued support.
I stand somewhat corrected when I said Bose supported connect. The reason it worked for me was because my mums Bose is a dock, so I was actually controlling my Spotify on my phone which was connected to he dock, via my Spotify on my iPad. I checked out the device support for Spotify connect, if we want this type of service "now" we need to go B&O or Panasonic it seems. All I want to be able to do is find new music via my Spotify subscription, even if that was through the sonos app that would be good!
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Hi folks, There's not much to say at the moment but we'd like everyone to understand where we're coming regarding the announcement from Spotify. Sonos is a platform for music lovers and we want Sonos customers to enjoy all the music on earth from whatever source they choose. We have an excellent partnership with Spotify which is, and will continue to be, an important part of many of our customers music listening experience on Sonos. Thanks for your continued support.
Amen, Rich. 
Hi folks, There's not much to say at the moment but we'd like everyone to understand where we're coming regarding the announcement from Spotify. Sonos is a platform for music lovers and we want Sonos customers to enjoy all the music on earth from whatever source they choose. We have an excellent partnership with Spotify which is, and will continue to be, an important part of many of our customers music listening experience on Sonos. Thanks for your continued support.
"Play on Sonos" if only has open API would be way to go too. There are others but Spotify to implement it and honestly many of these services are basically the same as Spotify. It's just that I haven't seen any official mention of "Play on Sonos" other than that interview mentioned in this thread, not to mention anything about when should we expect to see it released. It's not really encouraging if we see no meaningful response from Sonos in that matter. I don't agree that having Spotify radio or discover inside Sponos app is an option for most, just look how awful it is with Deezer, they made it there and it is not usable. And I imagine it is possible to use Spotify (or any other music app) through "Play on Sonos" and let the Sonos app control the zones at the same time.
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Hi folks, There's not much to say at the moment but we'd like everyone to understand where we're coming regarding the announcement from Spotify. Sonos is a platform for music lovers and we want Sonos customers to enjoy all the music on earth from whatever source they choose. We have an excellent partnership with Spotify which is, and will continue to be, an important part of many of our customers music listening experience on Sonos. Thanks for your continued support.
Dude, Spotify Discover and Spotify Radio are key for most Spotify users for finding new music. 
Hi folks, There's not much to say at the moment but we'd like everyone to understand where we're coming regarding the announcement from Spotify. Sonos is a platform for music lovers and we want Sonos customers to enjoy all the music on earth from whatever source they choose. We have an excellent partnership with Spotify which is, and will continue to be, an important part of many of our customers music listening experience on Sonos. Thanks for your continued support.
I'm not sure to which part of my post you are referring to. I'm just saying that implementing it within Sonos app wouldn't be best solution. Anything that allows to stream to Sonos using the Spotify app itself would. And "Play on Sonos" could make it possible, but only if Spotify decides to support it though.
Hi folks, There's not much to say at the moment but we'd like everyone to understand where we're coming regarding the announcement from Spotify. Sonos is a platform for music lovers and we want Sonos customers to enjoy all the music on earth from whatever source they choose. We have an excellent partnership with Spotify which is, and will continue to be, an important part of many of our customers music listening experience on Sonos. Thanks for your continued support.
I'm still completely confused as to whether or not this is going to happen in any form? be it Spotify app or Sonos app... has anyone actually said "we're working on making this happen?" or "we're not planning on it" yet?

Having to create playlists on Spotify to then access them via Sonos app is so fragmented and just ruins the Sonos experience, badly.
I just bought a sonos play:1 assuming i would be able to link to spotify. have just set it up and tried to play music through spotify and realised it cant be done. incredibly frustrated and feel mis-led/sold. tempted to take the speaker back and go for a standard audio system where i can at least connect my iphone/ipad through a line-in connector and play spotify through that. Sonos - any update??
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I just bought a sonos play:1 assuming i would be able to link to spotify. have just set it up and tried to play music through spotify and realised it cant be done. incredibly frustrated and feel mis-led/sold. tempted to take the speaker back and go for a standard audio system where i can at least connect my iphone/ipad through a line-in connector and play spotify through that. Sonos - any update??
Hi Chris,

Sonos can play music through Spotify but does not use Spotify Connect, which is a streaming method similar to AirPlay or Chromecast.  

What you can do is to setup your Spotify Premium account on Sonos, this is the method by which Sonos supports Spotify.  If you're still not satisfied, you can certainly take the PLAY:1 back then.
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I just bought a sonos play:1 assuming i would be able to link to spotify. have just set it up and tried to play music through spotify and realised it cant be done. incredibly frustrated and feel mis-led/sold. tempted to take the speaker back and go for a standard audio system where i can at least connect my iphone/ipad through a line-in connector and play spotify through that. Sonos - any update??
John. Please reply to the rest of this thread.. not just this comment where a user might not be signing in properly.
I just bought a sonos play:1 assuming i would be able to link to spotify. have just set it up and tried to play music through spotify and realised it cant be done. incredibly frustrated and feel mis-led/sold. tempted to take the speaker back and go for a standard audio system where i can at least connect my iphone/ipad through a line-in connector and play spotify through that. Sonos - any update??
I was specifically talking about spotify connect, can you tell me if there are plans to allow access to spotify connect either through the sonos app, or to allow you to stream to sonos speakers through the spotify app? At the moment I have a very pretty piece of equipment that I can't stream music through without paying for spotify premium. Thanks
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I just bought a sonos play:1 assuming i would be able to link to spotify. have just set it up and tried to play music through spotify and realised it cant be done. incredibly frustrated and feel mis-led/sold. tempted to take the speaker back and go for a standard audio system where i can at least connect my iphone/ipad through a line-in connector and play spotify through that. Sonos - any update??
Great to see that Sonos is still following this thread.
I have noticed that it's been a long time since there were any real updates to the Sonos apps. This can only mean to me that something great is in the making. I just wish that Sonos would shed some light on what's going on.
Spotify Connect is not the best solution for me. I would rather that Spotify added support for "Play on Sonos" to give me control of my zones.
If Sonos can come up with an app which rivals Spotify's while keeping support for all different services etc, it would be great too. But I do not see that this is possible.
"Play on Sonos" is my personal hope for the future, but Sonos needs to get aggressive before the competition gets ahead.
Sonos - this was last updated 7 months ago. Please tell me this is happening. All I want is to be able to control my Sonos through Spotify.