Sonos and Google Play Nice

By Jason Epstein

Owners of Sonos wireless speakers are typically a proud bunch who tout its excellent sound quality and app-integration.  And there’s good news for them – Google Play and Sonos are finally starting to play nice with each other.  Now you can open Google Play Music and stream it to your Sonos speaker or access the Google Play Music library in the Sonos app.  Sonos’ Android app is fine, but it’s not quite like having native support.  Plus, it seems that Google is catching up with Apple on wireless playback.  Google Play Music can now be added to Sonos’ list of streaming options, so you can access your Google cloud music or stream directly within the Google app to your WiFi enabled Sonos speakers.  And it can be done without the use of Apple’s AirPort — that’s one less layer of transmission from device to sound source.  

Hopefully this opens the door to more proprietary device pairings.  Because let’s be honest; wouldn’t the world be a better place if devices, OS’, cables, connectors, ports, patches, updates and every other piece of hardware and software under the sun just worked together seamlessly?  Well, we can wish, but as long as custom connections, subscription services and promotional pairings make companies ungodly sums of money, we’re just gonna have to get used to it.

As technology evolves, don’t we expect it to get faster, cheaper, easier and more seamless?  We do.  But the fact that this Sonos story is even news shows how backward technology can be.  As for now, Sonos hasn’t yet struck a deal with Pandora, Spotify, Rdio, Beats Music or any other streaming services.  So while 360-degree seamless integration is still as much a myth as unicorns (and increasingly so the more services, software and hardware that pop up), at least the idea of it is gaining some ground, and we can be thankful for that.

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