Google Play Music Can Control Sonos Too
- Paul Thurrott
- Dec 19, 2016
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8
As it turns out, Spotify isn’t the only music app that can control Sonos connected speaker systems. Google Play Music can as well, and it’s been able to do so for two years.
This is confusing to me. 🙂
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I wrote back in August that Spotify and Amazon Echo would be the first partners allowed to control Sonos speakers, and then I wrote today about my experiences doing so with Spotify. But as Richard Gregg pointed out on Twitter, they’re not actually first.
So I looked it up. And sure enough, Google and Sonos did announce back in April 2014 that you could control Sonos from the Google Play Music app. And I just tested this on my iPhone: It works as expected.
The thing is, the original Sonos announcement has disappeared from the web. So I looked it up with the Way Back Machine and found it in an archive. And that post literally says that Google was first.
“In Google Play Music, we’ve found a great partner to bring this vision to life for the first time on a global scale,” the Sonos post notes. “Together, we’ve created a music experience that shows how media, devices, and sound can seamlessly work together in the home.”
There’s also a Google site describing this capability.
“Sonos is now on Google Play Music,” Google explains, describing what it calls Direct Play. “Turn any room into a Play room by streaming music directly from the Google Play Music app on Android to your Sonos Wireless HiFi System. Listen to what you want, where you want, the way you want.”
So. Hm.
The thing is, in August, Sonos wrote the following:
“Spotify will be the first music streaming service that allows Spotify Premium listeners to have full control of the music all over their homes outside the Sonos app.”
And I think if you re-read that, as I have, what it’s saying is that Spotify is itself now the first app to allow Spotify Premium users to stream to Sonos … from outside the Sonos app. Not that Spotify is the first ever to stream to Sonos without using Sonos Connector.
Interesting. But I can’t find the original August Sonos blog post to check for other clues; something tells me they aggressively remove old content, and the Way Back Machine can’t help for 2017. Ah well.
Anyway, it’s all good news: This works on both Spotify and Google Play Music. And I’m curious if it works now with other apps too.