Control Sonos from Spotify

by Volker Weber

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Sonos integrates dozens of music services into their own controller. Search for a track and it will search across all services at the same time, as long as you are using the Android or iOS controller. That's not going away.

But honestly, how many streaming music services do you pay for? Chances are it is Spotify. Or Apple Music, maybe something else. Most likely you have one, and one only. And in that case, your want to use their app. Because it probably suits you way better than a Sonos controller.

And that is happening for Spotify, as announced two months ago. Come Sonos 7, which is currently in beta, you can live in your Spotify app. And when you want to play through Sonos, you go to that little indicator at the bottom, and instead of using your Bluetooth headset or speaker, or Airplay, you select one of your Sonos rooms, and boom, that's going to blast your music out loud. You can control the volume, you can even group and ungroup rooms.

Instead of the tail wagging the dog, now the dog is wagging the tail. This is a wonderful addition to the Sonos system. The only question is, what took them so long? Spotify Connect has been around for years. And finally, that is coming to Sonos. Listen up, Apple Music, maybe you can strike a similar deal?

Spotify Connect for Sonos 7 is in open beta now. Apply here.

Comments

Works rather well actually. I don't normally use beta software in a production environment, but on this occasion...

My music is all local (DLNA), Google Play or Amazon. The Google Play integration is complete (so far as I can tell). I play a track using Play on my BlackBerry Priv and can do everything I could do using the Sonos app before. Change volume, skip tracks etc.

Amazon is a different story. There's no option even to recognise that a Sonos device exists, still less control it. Not altogether surprising, I think.

There are other features of Sonos 7 which I find alluring - enhancements to movie dialogue etc - which I have yet to test, but expect them to be as advertised.

Thanks Volker.

Christopher Linfoot, 2016-11-01

And it just works. Although - as all beta programs by Sonos - it cripples some of the Sonos Controller's functionality on iOS devices for some time (= until end of beta), but this time it is really worth it. At least, the new functionality itself is available on the iOS devices as well, as it is not the Sonos Controller that was changed, but the SW in the speakers. Great, already love it.

Jonas Rathert, 2016-11-01

I don't want to discuss beta features. Would that be OK for everyone?

Volker Weber, 2016-11-01

Strange. Beta-Download, Reboot (Soundbar), Spotify App zeigt keine SONOS Komponenten an.

Martin Cygan, 2016-11-01

In Sonos Spotify löschen und hinzufügen. Dann wirst Du geführt.

Volker Weber, 2016-11-01

Witzig, ich musste eigentlich nur die SONOS App am Mac öffnen und schon kam ein Wizzard nach dem anderen. Sicherlich hätte Dein Weg auch geklappt Volker, danke!

Martin Cygan, 2016-11-01

Am I the only one who sees that Vowe has an exquisite taste in music?:-)

Horia Stanescu, 2016-11-02

Horia, everybody's taste is different. There is no "better".

Volker Weber, 2016-11-02

It would be great if I could just push all audio from my Mac out to Sonos.

*I think this has come up before, so sorry if I am re-hashing previous conversations.

Ian Bradbury, 2016-11-02

Just so you understand: what happens here is NOT, that the Spotify app sends audio to your Sonos player. What happens instead is that Spotify streams music directly from the service to your player.

You want to route audio. You can have that crappy AirPlay experience right away if you lookfor AirSonos on Github. https://github.com/stephen/airsonos This will turn all your Sonos players into Airplay targets and you can start routing audio.

Volker Weber, 2016-11-02

@Volker - okay. Streaming to the player makes sense and fits with the architecture.

Crappy airplay experience. No thank you.

Ian Bradbury, 2016-11-02

When you think about streaming video sound to your sonos player forget air sonos, the delay is too big and it gets noticable out of sync.

Except of that sonos is quite open in playing whatever you like. There are bunch of tutorials how to setup text to speech on a sonos for home automation messages.

Patrick Bohr, 2016-11-03

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