Sonos, Inc. is an American audio equipment manufacturer headquartered in Santa Barbara, California. The company was founded in 2002 by John MacFarlane, Craig Shelburne, Tom Cullen, and Trung Mai. Patrick Spence has been its CEO since 2017. Sonos has partnered with over 100 companies that offer music services, including Pandora, iHeartRadio, SiriusXM, Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, MOG, QQ Music, YouTube Music and Amazon Music. Sonos products work with the three major voice assistants: Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple Siri, although the last 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.

History

Corporate, financial, and marketing history

Sonos was founded as "Rincon Audio, Inc." in August 2002 by John MacFarlane, Craig Shelburne, Tom Cullen and Trung Mai, with MacFarlane wanting to create a wireless service. The company changed its name to "Sonos, Inc." in May 2004. 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. It's been reported that in D2 Steve Jobs told MacFarlane that the Sonos controller's scroll wheel might violate Apple patents related to the iPod. Sonos aimed to begin shipping its products in the fourth quarter of 2004 but missed that deadline. The company first introduced its products to the market in January 2005 and first shipped them in either January or March 2005. 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 and Solange, 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 April 2014, Google and Sonos introduced deep integration features that allowed user to play and control Google Play Music through Sonos devices. 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 Music Makes it Home Study. In March 2016, CEO John MacFarlane announced the company's shift to focus on 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. Sonos announced the store's closure in June 2020. 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 January 2020, Sonos sued Google over copyright infringement relating to several patents, including the ability to sync audio over multiple devices. In August 2021, a judge ruled in favor of Sonos. The International Trade Commission also ruled in favor of Sonos. As a result, Google was ordered to remove certain features from its devices, including group volume control. Google was ordered to pay Sonos $32.5 million in damages. However, a judge tossed out the verdict in October and criticized Sonos for abusing the patent system. Following the verdict, Google redeployed the features it had previously removed. 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. In November 2020, Sonos launched "Sonos Radio HD", a paid ad-free tier of Sonos Radio. In May 2023, Sonos reported a 24% drop in revenue. Sonos would then lay off 7% of its workforce—130 employees—in June. In August 2024, Sonos laid off another 100 employees. Several of its customers support locations will also close, including one in Amsterdam.

Product history

Products announced by Sonos (excluding several smaller or less-important ones) have been:

History of outside services supported

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 and Google Assistant virtual assistants. Apple's Siri is supported, but only through the Home app.

Logo history

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

Product line

List of current and past products

Automotive

The first automotive brand to partner with Sonos is Audi in the Audi Q4 e-tron. As of May 2024, Audi is the only partner.

Technical details

Communication between Sonos products

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.

S1 and S2 operating systems

In 2020, Sonos released its S2 operating system. Its existing system was retroactively named "S1" to differentiate it from its new system. All products launched after May 2020 support S2 exclusively.

Trueplay

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 Sonos iOS app.

Standby and Low power mode

Sonos devices generally do not have power buttons, and the company claims that each speaker consumes 4–8W in idle/standby. Its battery-powered lineup does have power buttons to turn them on and off.

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 explained its background, components and operation.

Controversies

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 customers paid full price for equipment that will cease to be supported after two or three years. On January 23, 2020, following a widespread backlash and criticism of this announcement, Sonos reversed and clarified it, stating that it would continue to support its older equipment. In May 2024, Sonos' update to its mobile app was panned for its visual design, poor accessibility support, and the removal of key features such as the alarm and sleep timer, removal of local music library support, fast draining of batteries, and inability to edit upcoming song queues and playlists. Sonos CEO Patrick Spence apologized for the update, referring to "issues", in what has been called "hilarious tone of wry British understatement". As of August 2024, the new app has a 1.3 point review average on Google Play. In June 2024, Sonos updated its privacy policy in the United States, removing a clause that explicitly stated the company did not sell customer data. This change caused concern among users and privacy advocates, who interpreted it as a possible prelude to data sales.

Locations

Headquarters

The headquarters are located in Santa Barbara, California.

Stores

The first official Sonos Store was opened in New York City on July 12, 2016. It was closed in June 2020. A store opened on Seven Dials in London, in November 2017. A store opened in Berlin in April 2018.

Offices

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

Explanatory notes