Spotify Connect, serious competition

As for the other suggestions, Sonos execs in the past have ruled out Video and Car audio as not being something they're interested in.

I would honestly be happy enough if Spotify added their upcoming "Collection" feature into the API so that Sonos can get it. I don't really care about the Discover or Follow to show up on there, I have the mobile and desktop apps for that.

Radio isn't a huge loss for me. I don't think Spotify's algorithms are very good at all and I rarely use it on mobile/desktop. If I want "Radio" I'll just use Songza or 8tracks, which are much better.

I don't understand why so many pundits are simply waiting for SONOS to be devoured by a "big fish". If this happens, the SONOS technology will likely be buried because it is so disruptive. Really, in this market space SONOS is the gorilla and the gorilla is growing.

While I think that Qualcomm's bid is an offensive move to sell their hardware, I think that the other moves are defensive. The music services want more control of the user interface, probably with the option of adding advertisements or the opportunity to "buy now" at some point. Traditional manufacturers are trying to maintain their business model, but this is becoming more difficult because they are mostly hardware oriented and each new feature addition likely involves designing in some hardware, such as a Qualcomm or Apple chip. In my opinion this will not work well because the manufacturers' design cycles and the consumer purchase cycles are too long. Receiver purchases are done on a five to ten (and more) year cycle. Of course, a series of "dongles" could be offered to support services, but this is expensive and has not been wildly successful to date. A major driving force for current receiver purchases is the analog sundown for video connections. An interesting development would be an industry standard dongle interface, but I doubt that this can happen. We are now decades into IR technology, there is still no unifying standard, and customers suffer because of this.

Pricing? In spite of those who visualize SONOS as an expensive computer accessory, SONOS is a very aggressively priced whole home audio system. Unless someone is willing to take a big risk that they can achieve economy of scale much higher than SONOS has achieved (significantly driving down costs), I don't think that directly competing with SONOS is very attractive for established companies. As a startup, SONOS made a huge, risky bet that they could eventually achieve economy of scale to support their pricing. In my opinion only a startup can do this because the big guys are too worried about career and the next quarterly report.

I don't know exactly what features the Qualcomm chipset offers, but this could lower risk for entrants and established companies.

IMO Sonos could partially head off any threat from this sort of thing by releasing a library for the main Smartphone platforms that allowed third-party apps to easily push content to Sonos.

Of course, Spotify may not adopt it, but others will which will dilute any benefits of the Spotify platform.

Personally, I try to avoid anything which is locked into a single service ecosystem. Apple and (perhaps) Google have the branding to convince people to put all their eggs in their particular basket, but I'm not convinced Spotify do.

Cheers,

Keith

A standalone Line-In module has been quite a popular topic in Sound Ideas. Extending that concept to include S/PDIF input and (optionally) an inbuilt Airplay/Spotify Connect/Qualcomm chip with the stream being delivered via SonosNet would be conceivable. A bit like a Dock (RIP), and perhaps at a similar price point. Maybe it could even sport an HDMI for Google Chromecast.

I like that idea, although I am not sure I would use something like that enough to justify getting one.

Furthermore:

You could also use Spotify Connect if you hooked up an iPod Touch to a line-in on a Sonos unit.

Although, I am not sure if Spotify Connect will be able to "wake up" a sleeping iPod Touch with sleeping Spotify app. That remains to be seen.

Either way, after my initial displeasure with this, I'm really not that worried and feel 100% safe in my investment in Sonos products. You just can't beat it.

A standalone Line-In module has been quite a popular topic in Sound Ideas. Extending that concept to include S/PDIF input and (optionally) an inbuilt Airplay/Spotify Connect/Qualcomm chip with the stream being delivered via SonosNet would be conceivable. A bit like a Dock (RIP), and perhaps at a similar price point. Maybe it could even sport an HDMI for Google Chromecast.

This would be ideal, but I don't know how eager Apple/Spotify/Qualcomm are going to be to allow one license to stream to up to 32 unlicensed players. I assume their business plan is exclusive contracts with certain partners in order to drive repacement sales due to a "must have" checkmark. Allowing a single license to wipe out the (theoretical) sale of up to 32 licensed devices may not be in their plan.

Let's face it, incomparable to the full Sonos experience as they are, every press release for Airplay/Spotify Connect/Quallcomm/etc. includes commentary which mentions them as a Sonos alternative. If those companies planned to allow Sonos to incorporate their new tech on the cheap, they (and/or the fawning audio press) wouldn't be emphasizing their similarities to Sonos.

I agree with buzz that Sonos is the gorilla, and that these moves are more about defending a brand rather than aiming at Sonos' heart. However, I also feel they don't want to do Sonos any favors given Sonos' superior product, and the Spotify head of hardware partnerships' spontaneous utterance (and subsequent backtracking) is proof. Certainly there is a level of hostility towards Sonos at the global hardware partnerships level, that cannot be denied.

This would be ideal, but I don't know how eager Apple/Spotify/Qualcomm are going to be to allow one license to stream to up to 32 unlicensed players. I assume their business plan is exclusive contracts with certain partners in order to drive repacement sales due to a "must have" checkmark. Allowing a single license to wipe out the (theoretical) sale of up to 32 licensed devices may not be in their plan.
It's going to happen anyway if someone with a budget Apple/Spotify/Qualcomm-enabled receiver hooks it up to a Sonos Line-In. Why not at least make for easy digital (S/PDIF) transfer into Sonos multi-room. Many receivers will output S/PDIF. Sure, one can front a Playbar with an S/PDIF switch already, but it implies some constraints (the source must play on Playbar as "TV", albeit muted) ... and you need a Playbar.

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.

unfortunately my early eagerness over Rdio has come to an abrupt end :-(
I spend approx 2 hours a day commuting by car. I have an unlimited data contract on my iphone so have Spotify playing continuously via bluetooth during that time, normally with Spotify Radio so I can find new music or old music Ive not heard in a while.

Sadly the Rdio app falls well short of Spotify's when 'on the go'. Even on the lowest quality setting, songs take ages to buffer but I have no issues, even at high quality, on Spotify. I am therefore left with pauses during playback either at the end of a song or worse still during it. Secondly the bluetooth output is very unreliable - sometimes, and for no apparent reason, the sound just drops out though the song continues to play as shown on the progress bar. Switching from blutooth to iphone and its still silence. only way to get it going again is to kill the app and restart it. Obviously this is not what you want to be doing whilst trying to drive ! Again, no such issues with Spotify's Iphone app.

So despite the improved features on Sonos I cant continue with Rdio due to its poor mobile app compared to Spotify.

Any other music service suggestions in the UK or do I have to stick with Spotify and hope for the best ?

Any other music service suggestions in the UK or do I have to stick with Spotify and hope for the best ?
You could have a go with Deezer. It has a 15-day Premium+ free eval period.