Spotify Connect, serious competition

Spotify today announced Spotify Connect, which will be a series of hardware from well-known hardware to seamlessly integrate spotify onto devices where the control is from the regular Spotify application on your phone or similar.

Streaming is still done directly through internet, so the phone isn't in charge of it, just controls it.

I really do hope that Sonos will follow this approach as well, I believe there are a lot more like me that primarily uses Sonos for Spotify, and being able to use the same app as always would be awesome.

Actually, I think it'll mean the opposite, have a look at: http://www.whathifi.com/news/spotify-connect-takes-aim-at-airplay-and-sonos

The quote from the Spotify exec is pretty cut and dried, no further development of Spotify on Sonos. Reading that I wouldn't even be surprised if Spotify pulls their service from Sonos completely, it may be a requirement of their license agreement with those hardware manufacturers (after all, if they're going to invest in this service they aren't going to want it being offered on other, non-licensed, hardware).

This is NOT a good thing, for the first time I'm actually worried about how this might affect Sonos' development.

uh - oh - this is a serious worry.

I use Sonos almost exclusively with Spotify and was hoping for better integration of Spotify features such as Spotify Radio and starring tracks from within sonos. However this announcement probably kills those ideas stone dead.

in fact this quote is very bullish...
Pascal de Mul, global head of hardware partnerships at Spotify, told Techcrunch that there was "no plan to extend Connect to Sonos and no plan to continue to develop with Sonos"

gulp. I love Spotify and have built up quite some library of playlists etc and would hate to start over with another provider. can anyone match spotify for music range and the bitstream rate ?

can anyone match spotify for music range and the bitstream rate ?
MOG, but they're not in Europe yet.

Rdio is available in EU, but 'streams up to 320 kbps' and there seems to have been some doubt about what the actual rate is.

To me, this seems like a power play by someone. Evidently, SONOS users do not represent a significant percentage of the SPOTIFY user base or SPOTIFY expects to be able to harvest the SONOS users.

Personally, I consider all of the services to be more or less interchangeable. I'm more interested in the content and reliability than any single feature. If one service makes my life miserable, I'll fix that problem at the end of the billing cycle.

I also wonder if the listed more traditional manufacturers are feeling pinched by the ever expanding SONOS user base. Stuffing a SPOTIFY chip in a traditional product continues business as usual model for the old line manufacturers.

Another dimension to this is control of the user interface. Now that SPOTIFY has control, they can start pushing advertising or charge more to avoid it.

WTF, way to go to if they leave Sonos behind on this. I don't even see what the fuzz is about licensing. Spotifys main income is subscribers, so as I see it it would be beneficial to be available on as many devices as possible. Instead they try to do a licensing deal and earn money on that, or what?

Will be interesting to see how this plays out...

These services are not quite so interchangeable in EU. There's a reduced number of them compared to the US, and in quality terms Spotify has been out in front.

Given the unending and understandable clamour there's been for additional Sonos/Spotify features (radio, apps, etc) and the problems in dealing with the proprietary interfaces -- never mind Spotify's preferred hybrid P2P scheme -- then maybe someone somewhere said this is all too hard and difficult anyway.

More here, with extended quote from the Spotify head of hardware partnerships.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/03/spotify-connect-rivals-apple-airplay

"There are a couple of devices already out in the market that will support this through a firmware upgrade...."

Surely Sonos should be one of these but there is no mention of it and in fact quite the contrary 😞

As a Spotify subscriber I find it sad if they choose to pull their services. I wouldn't be sad for long though, as I feel confident there will always be others who will offer similar or even better services. I wouldn't know if Wimp is available outside of Norway, but they have more or less the same catalogue as Spotify, at least when it comes to the music I prefer to listen to. Also, they are now introducing true CD quality sound. Nice knowing you, Spotify.

Can anyone comment on the current Deezer Premium+ service? I haven't tried it in a couple of years.