Sonos


Sonos is a Santa Barbara, California-based developer and manufacturer of wireless home audio products, including smart speakers. The basic idea behind its products is Whole House Audio, i.e., to allow a household to play music from a variety of sources in multiple rooms simultaneously, so that different rooms may hear either the same music source in synch, or different music sources.
The company was founded in 2002 by John MacFarlane, Craig Shelburne, Tom Cullen, and Trung Mai, and is currently run by Patrick Spence.
Sonos has partnered with over 100 companies that offer music services, including Pandora, iHeartRadio, Spotify, MOG, QQ Music, and Amazon Music. Sonos products work with the three major voice assistants: Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple Siri, although the latter is currently only supported through Apple's Home app.. In 2019 Sonos acquired Snips SAS, a privacy-focused AI voice platform for connected devices with the goal to bring a music-specific assistant to its devices.

Product line

The company currently offers eight powered speakers: four smart speakers, two soundbars, a television sound system, and a subwoofer. It also offers the AMP to drive unpowered speaker pairs and the PORT to link a Sonos system to conventional audio equipment such as amplifiers and CD players. The company recently added its first portable rechargeable battery powered speaker. A variety of previous products existed as well, current and discontinued products are detailed below.

History

Corporate, financial, and marketing history

Sonos was founded in August 2002 by John MacFarlane, Craig Shelburne, Tom Cullen and Trung Mai, with MacFarlane wanting to create a wireless service.
During 2004, MacFarlane brought prototypes of the first Sonos products to several industry events, including the June 2004 "D2: All Things Digital" conference in Carlsbad, California and the December 2004 Digital Music Summit.
In May 2005, Sonos announced that its initial product line would go on sale in the United Kingdom in the following month. The company has continued to broaden its international sales, for example to Japan in 2018.
In May 2012, Sonos opened the Sonos Studio in Los Angeles, a studio and art gallery in which art was exhibited along with Sonos' products for free, and featured events with artists like Beck, The Lonely Island, Solange and others, and released a video about its development. The Los Angeles location was closed in 2018; a London location remains open.
In December 2013, the company was estimated to have raised $118 million in venture funding, including a $25 million round; Its investors included Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Redpoint Ventures and Elevation Partners.
In January 2015, Sonos was rebranded by Bruce Mau Design, with a new visual identity and improved logotype that was created over the span of four years, from 2011 to 2014. There have been other brand refreshes, including one in 2019.
In February 2016 Sonos also released a study called the Music Makes it Home Study.
In March 2016, CEO John MacFarlane announced the company's shift to streaming music services and voice control instead of local playback, and laid off some employees.
In July 2016, the company opened its first Sonos Store in SoHo.
In September 2016, the company announced that its products would become available at the Apple Store.
In January 2017, MacFarlane announced via the company's blog that he would be stepping down from his role as CEO, and that he would be succeeded in this position by former COO Patrick Spence.
In December 2017, IKEA and Sonos announced a collaboration to build Sonos' technology into furniture sold by IKEA.
In August 2018, Sonos went public, trading on the NASDAQ under the symbol SONO.
In November 2019, Sonos acquires Snips SAS, a privacy-focused AI voice platform for connected devices with the goal to bring a music-specific assistant to its devices.
In April 2020, Sonos revealed a new "sonic logo" composed by Philip Glass, featuring an ensemble of 21 musicians. The logo will be heard in the listening experience of Sonos Radio, an Internet radio streaming service that was unveiled by the company the same month.
In June 2020, Sonos announced plans to lay off 12% of its workforce, close its New York store and six of its offices, and cut its top executives' pay by 20% for three to six months, in response to the economic disruptions caused by the COVID pandemic.

Product history

Products announced by Sonos have been:
In April 2005, Sonos announced that its products could play music from Rhapsody, the first of many music services that its products would support. Starting in September 2006 Sonos supported Rhapsody from its own Controller without use of a PC. Subsequently added services include:
Sonos devices support the Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant virtual assistants. Apple Siri is only supported through Apple's Home app.

Logo history

The word is a palindrome and the logo a rotational ambigram.

Technical issues and changes

Multiple Sonos devices in a single household are connected to each other wirelessly, through a wired Ethernet network, or a mixture of the two. The Sonos system creates a proprietary AES-encrypted peer-to-peer mesh network, known as SonosNet. This allows for each unit to play any chosen input and if desired share it as synchronized audio with one or more other chosen zones. The first versions of SonosNet required a single ZonePlayer or ZoneBridge to be wired to a network for access to LAN and Internet audio sources or when creating a 3.1/5.1 surround setup. SonosNet 2.0 integrated MIMO on 802.11n hardware, providing a more robust connection. Later, the company added support for connecting to an existing Wi-Fi network for internet connectivity, removing the wired network requirement. Sonos devices do not have power buttons, and the company claims that each speaker consumes 4–8W in idle/standby.
In November 2015, a tuning feature called Trueplay was released in a software update. Trueplay tunes the output of Sonos smart speaker units to the acoustics of the room they are in. The initial tuning process requires the use of a suitable Apple smartphone or tablet.

Reception

In November 2004, the Sonos Digital Music System won the "Best of Audio" award at the 2005 CES Innovations Design and Engineering awards.
A February 2005 Macworld review of the first Sonos system thoroughly explains its background, components and operation, summarizing its basic idea and function with Sonos' advertising tagline, "All your digital music. All over your house."
Support for the CR100 ended in 2018 when Sonos sent out an update that intentionally caused the CR100 to cease to function, resulting in expressions of unhappiness from a number of long-time Sonos customers. Sonos later settled a class action lawsuit related to its decision to intentionally cause the CR100 to cease to function.
Sonos was criticized by media outlets in December 2019 for its "Recycle Mode", which bricks devices that users register into the company's trade-in program. Customers who participate in the program receive a 30 percent discount on a purchase of a new Sonos device, but the registration puts the device into Recycle Mode, which starts a timer that turns the device permanently non-functional in 21 days. An electronic waste recycler criticized the procedure on Twitter for being environmentally unfriendly, stating that it discourages reuse by preventing recyclers from reselling functional Sonos units. Sonos responded that Recycle Mode was intended to ensure that prospective customers purchase newer Sonos models instead of older secondhand models. In March 2020, Sonos discontinued the Recycle Mode and no longer requires customers to dispose of products submitted for its trade-in program.
On January 22, 2020, Sonos notified the end of support for speakers made before 2015, meaning that they eventually will lose functionality, something that sparked anger from their owners. Many of these speakers were purchased by customers after 2015, meaning that Sonos customers paid full price for a piece of consumer electronics that will cease to be supported after two or three years.

Locations

Headquarters

The headquarters are located in Santa Barbara, California.

Stores and resellers

The company's products are mostly resold through vendors, such as Best Buy, Apple and Target. However, online retailers, such as Amazon.com and Crutchfield, also play a role in distributing and reselling products manufactured by the company. According to a press release in November 2011, the company had over 6,300 retail locations that housed their products in North America.
The first official Sonos Store was opened in New York City on July 12, 2016. A store opened on Seven Dials in London, in November 2017. A store opened in Berlin, Germany in April 2018.

Offices

There are currently 12 offices operated by Sonos independently. These are located in Australia, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Santa Barbara CA, Seattle WA, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. An engineering office was present in Boston as of 2017.