Sonos Spotify integration? Could it really be? When we last interviewed Sonos CEO John MacFarlane a year ago, we asked when we were going to see the Sonos Spotify multi room music streaming collaboration we’d been dreaming of. It’s taken more than a while, but the company has finally come up with the goods, and we got an early look this week at what to expect when the world’s best internet music service lands in a software update at the end of this month. Read on for the details.
We knew a Sonos iPad app for controlling all the tunes around your home was on the way, but Sonos has just revealed that it’ll feature Spotify integration too – don’t worry, it’s coming to the other apps and remotes too. Why is this so exciting? Well, for one, it’s multi-room: pick what you want from the millions of songs available, and play them instantly in your kitchen while another Spotify track plays in your dining room.
In fact, it’s just about the only way you can play more than one song at a time through one Spotify Premium account: we saw the Sonos iPad app select and play two different songs from the service on two separate ZonePlayers without a hitch. You can drag and drop Spotify tracks into the queue as though they were locally stored MP3s, and the iPad app really makes full use of the tablet’s larger screen real estate.
It also bests current offerings on Sonos (Like the well stocked Napster) by knitting in the Spotify’s popular social side: you can check out the playlists people have made and published straight from your Sonos remote of choice (although you can’t create them yourself on the remote/app).
And then of course, there’s the value proposition. If you’ve been teetering on the edge of upgrading to Spotify Premium (£9.99 per month) this should seal it for you: if you have a Sonos set up, it really does mean you don’t have to buy a CD ever again, with no restrictions. And hey, you get mobile support thrown in to.
Sonos Spotify integration arrives at the end of the month with the new firmware update, but we’re in on the closed beta, so we’ll be going hands on in depth much sooner and bringing you a full preview.
Out this month | £Free for Spotify Premium users | Sonos
