Spotify Connect, serious competition

  • 3 September 2013
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254 replies

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FIY the TechCrunch article has been updated:

Update: Spotify says the quote is taken out of context, in that it cannot share future plans, not that it doesn’t have any at all. “We will continue to support and improve the Spotify experience on Sonos,” a spokesperson noted, once again not confirming any timescale or specifics.

So hopefully we are not doomed yet...:)


The Spotify experience on Sonos, really, i think he was being sarcastic.
Maybe I'm misreading those comments, but I think 'scorched earth' might be a bit strong. He never said "we're getting off Sonos as soon as we can; they can kiss my...", just that they won't invest further development time in the platform. It'll still work, it just won't get any better. Everyone waiting on the radio feature is probably SOL, for example.

By scorched earth, I meant they basically said they were not going to work with Sonos any further, thus leaving us high and dry. They have since amended that, but the initial blurb by the Spotify official certainly seemed to me as stating "our partnership with Sonos has ended." YMMV.
And so it begins . . . Spotify Radio designated as "Not Planned" as of 5 minutes ago:

https://ask.sonos.com/sonos/topics/add_spotify_radios_to_sonos

Again, the only thing Spotify will understand is cancellations. It doesn't affect me, then again I've switched services 4 times since I've owned Sonos due to dissatisfaction, and I got at least a year of $4.99/mo. Rhapsody/Napster streaming because of it.
The only reason to cut off one's subscription at this stage is if there's something better on Sonos. As a good quality streaming replacement for CD purchases Spotify on Sonos still fits the bill in its current form. The absence of music discovery apps is a pain, but there are alternatives.

In the EU 320k streaming services are few and far between. I started a fresh Deezer trial today but already ran into issues.


Ordinarily I would agree with you, but Spotify seems to be at a fork in the road with regards to Sonos support, and a bold statement by Sonos customers may just may sway them on which road to take. Regardless of whether Sonos is sufficient as a replacement for CDs today (and I agree it is), anyone who wishes for more from Spotify is going to be disappointed, and a cancellation may be warranted as a symbol of that disappointment.
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I joined Spotify Premium specifically to use with my Sonos, and convinced my father to do the same after selling him on Sonos.I am a big fan of Spotify and would love to send a message short of cancellation. Especially while there remains the hope of continued cooperation. I couldn't find anywhere to send a comment (other than just create another thread on their forum, which seems a waste.
I joined Spotify Premium specifically to use with my Sonos, and convinced my father to do the same after selling him on Sonos.I am a big fan of Spotify and would love to send a message short of cancellation. Especially while there remains the hope of continued cooperation. I couldn't find anywhere to send a comment (other than just create another thread on their forum, which seems a waste.

John M from Sonos gave this link in the Spotify Radio thread on ask.sonos:

http://community.spotify.com/t5/ideas/v2/ideapage/blog-id/ideaexchange/article-id/16743/

Which I suppose is their message boards, but it is better than nothing. In reality, a cancellation is the only thing which gets noticed, carping on a message board simply means you are still paying them, and any threat to leave seems idle if you haven't left yet. A sad, but true fact.
Ordinarily I would agree with you, but Spotify seems to be at a fork in the road with regards to Sonos support, and a bold statement by Sonos customers may just may sway them on which road to take. Regardless of whether Sonos is sufficient as a replacement for CDs today (and I agree it is), anyone who wishes for more from Spotify is going to be disappointed, and a cancellation may be warranted as a symbol of that disappointment.
Users with a legitimate grievance in terms of missing functionality will now end up with a competitor service anyway. If those of us who've, in large part, been satisfied with Spotify (apart from early teething troubles) all get up and leave too then it would further undermine any incentive to maintain the current service. I fail to see what effect a mass subscription cancellation would have other than to bring forward the fateful day when the Sonos service is shuttered.

New services will come into being, and existing services will improve. Bring on the day when we can stream lossless here! When the case is compelling I, and doubtless others, will migrate. Until such time throwing my Spotify toys on the floor feels like rather an empty gesture.
Users with a legitimate grievance in terms of missing functionality will now end up with a competitor service anyway. If those of us who've, in large part, been satisfied with Spotify (apart from early teething troubles) all get up and leave too then it would further undermine any incentive to maintain the current service. I fail to see what effect a mass subscription cancellation would have other than to bring forward the fateful day when the Sonos service is shuttered.

New services will come into being, and existing services will improve. Bring on the day when we can stream lossless here! When the case is compelling I, and doubtless others, will migrate. Until such time throwing my Spotify toys on the floor feels like rather an empty gesture.


I've no problem with your stance, and I in no way called for mass cancellation. My only point was that the days of whining to Sonos about missing functionality are over, and if one wishes a change, that change will come about due to pressure on Spotify, not Sonos.
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And so it begins . . . Spotify Radio designated as "Not Planned" as of 5 minutes ago:

https://ask.sonos.com/sonos/topics/add_spotify_radios_to_sonos

Again, the only thing Spotify will understand is cancellations. It doesn't affect me, then again I've switched services 4 times since I've owned Sonos due to dissatisfaction, and I got at least a year of $4.99/mo. Rhapsody/Napster streaming because of it.

That was quick. Man, I really hope they can work something out.
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Vote up (give kudos) to this idea on the Spotify community so maybe spotify will realese a public API/specification of Spotify Connect.

community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Ideas/Publish-the-Spotify-Connect-Wireless-speaker-API/idi-p/520890
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Vote up (give kudos) to this idea on the Spotify community so maybe spotify will realese a public API/specification of Spotify Connect.

community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Ideas/Publish-the-Spotify-Connect-Wireless-speaker-API/idi-p/520890


There's no way they are going to do this. I am sure that they are going to license out the tech/software to manufacturers and they are going to want some sort of control over what is using it.

In general this whole thing has me looking at other subscription services though. Rdio is second best behind Spotify, I think, only because of their sometimes questionable sound quality. Great looking and fully featured service otherwise. Music selection is very close to Spotify, too.
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Im in the UK and also now looking at Rdio.
is there any way to establish the bitrate it uses ?
e.g. in Sonos 'about my system' ? similar to how on the playbar it shows 5.1 or PCM ?
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Im in the UK and also now looking at Rdio.
is there any way to establish the bitrate it uses ?
e.g. in Sonos 'about my system' ? similar to how on the playbar it shows 5.1 or PCM ?

Good question - I don't think so.

I really don't understand why they don't publish what they stream at - it just makes the consumer think that it must not be good if they're not telling us. They say that they're always experimenting with different bitrates and formats to "provide the best possible listening experience". I guess they do that because they want to provide faster streams from mobile/desktop.
Im in the UK and also now looking at Rdio.
is there any way to establish the bitrate it uses ?
e.g. in Sonos 'about my system' ? similar to how on the playbar it shows 5.1 or PCM ?

This is what rather puts me off: the fact that I couldn't be certain what I'd be getting for the money.

There's no way that I know of to determine Rdio's bitrate as seen by the Sonos Player. You could always use a bandwidth monitor in your router, if it offers one.
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Of note as well: It has been documented that Rdio applies some sort of processing to the music too, so it isn't all about bitrate. I've had Rdio before (before I had Sonos) and while Rdio's bitrate seemed high enough, the music definitely sounded different compared to my local file.

There were also a few albums that noticeably sounded worse (older albums).

It does stink since I enjoy the UI and functionality of the service, but they kill it with SQ.

Lets just all hope that Spotify and Sonos work it out.
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Im just using this to import all my playlists from Spotify to Rdio:
http://resp.in/

shame there is no free premium trial so I can test the Sonos integration.
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Im just using this to import all my playlists from Spotify to Rdio:
http://resp.in/

shame there is no free premium trial so I can test the Sonos integration.


There isn't? I thought they at least gave a 14 day trial.

Actually, try downloading the mobile app if you an Android or iOS device and I think it should give you 7 day trial without needing to put a credit card in.
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good thinking - installed app, offered 14 day free trial, now added as service on Sonos :-)

funny I couldnt find that through their website.
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good thinking - installed app, offered 14 day free trial, now added as service on Sonos :-)

funny I couldnt find that through their website.


Excellent. Let me know what you think - I've never used it on Sonos. And I'm curious to what you think of how it sounds as well. I've also always wondered if it streams gapless on Sonos because I know it doesn't on web/desktop/mobile.
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Excellent. Let me know what you think - I've never used it on Sonos. And I'm curious to what you think of how it sounds as well. I've also always wondered if it streams gapless on Sonos because I know it doesn't on web/desktop/mobile.

well for starters it has 'Artist Radio' which will never happen now with Spotify
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What would be great is if Rdio or Rhapsody or another service with similar library to Spotify could read and transfer my Spotify playlists over. Then I wouldn't worry as much about it.

UPDATE: Just saw nicka99's link. Nice to know there might be another option yet for my playlists.
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UPDATE: Just saw nicka99's link. Nice to know there might be another option yet for my playlists.

its worked a treat so far. Rdio doesnt have a 'star track' feature so I just imported my 'Starred tracks' playlist for that purpose.

Also the ability to match your entire Itunes/windows music library as a 'collection' is genius. Always bothered me with Spotify that everything had to be a playlist.
They're coming thick and fast, this time Qualcomm in partnership with Rhapsody.

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/123359-qualcomm-allplay-another-sonos-challenger-enters-the-game

For now Sonos seems safe, however for how long depends on how quick manufacturers take the new technology on board.


Too true. Mine sounds great.
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I have been lurking for some time and really enjoy reading the user comments of this forum. I have 4 Play 5s and 2 Connects in my environment and love everything about my Sonos setup.

I apologize if this is not in the right section but after the recent news by Spotify and Qualcom to compete with Sonos, I have a question that I hope can benefit Sonos itself. Mainly, what is the roadmap going forward? I'm not talking about the next product, but rather what would we, the users, like to see going forward for the ecosystem as a whole? I have benefited so much from reading these posts and am amazed at how clever and creative a lot of you are that I think it would be good for Sonos to hear how we might map it out.

It is clear that there are a lot of comanies, with a lot of cash interested in the space. Like Apple experienced, they will eventually find a way to copy the major benefits of Sonos and likely at much lower price points.

For me, video is not that important unless it allows me to stream across any screen in any location. Streaming across screens in my home is a nice start but it is pretty much available through my cable system and also through most satelites and slingbox. Stand alone apps will likely make this even better in the future.

Music itself has much more importance for me but apart from being able to listen offsite, which is available as well, I don't know how Sonos improves the current product other than building a portable unit and improving the interface. My house is not big enough to warrant too many more players.

The car is something I would love but since I can stream music services already, I am interested in how Sonos could improve this.

So far I see the living room video push as being the most significant for Sonos but apart from adding more speakers to your movie watching experience, I don't see how this is game changing.

I guess what I'm really interested in is whether Sonos will just be a box maker that will ultimately be bettered at some point, or will they evolve into something totally different. If they do evolve, how will this look? How does Sonos become a game changer?

My guess is that the competition will ultimately beome too much and they will sell to one of the big boys. We will suffer in return.
kilbey41,

Welcome to the forum. Sonos does not publish a roadmap. That is their stated policy, so we are left to speculate. If we read between the lines, given the brief "Planned" status of Spotify Radio, which quickly changed back to "Under Consideration" and then to "Unplanned" after yesterday's announcement, I think we can rule out any elaborate Spotify functionality coming soon.

As to my preference for a roadmap, I use Sonos in the following ways:

SiriusXM - 35%
Local Library - 35%
MOG - 15%
Internet Radio - 10%
All Others - 5%

I personally would love the new SiriusXM On-Demand functions; give me that and I would be a pig in slop. But I realize SiriusXM users are probably not a large percentage of Sonos users (although they should advertise more on SiriusXM. It's what got me to try Sonos in the first place!!! 😉 ). So seeing that my personal choices are basically music, music, music and talk shows, I've no need for video, and hope Sonos wastes no valuable resources on it. Instead, I hope they continue to be the most reliable, rock solid, least expensive multi-room whole house audio solution.

As to the business plan, I feel that with the release of the Play:3 they have gotten the market penetration they wanted (and the riches that come with it), but they may have gone too far in the "we support service XYZ!!!" direction and have stopped emphasizing their real strength - That they are a much cheaper alternative to any other multi-room whole house system out there. This emphasis on service provider support also has a big gotcha; it relies on the cooperation of the service providers. Will the fact that the services are now getting a little hungry for their own slice of the pie spell Sonos' demise? I guess we will find out.

Of course this is all just my opinion. YMMV.