MacFarlane introduced a prototype at the Consumer Electronics Show, which was released in as a bundle called the Digital Music System. The company expanded upon the prototype and product design, adding mesh networking with AES encryption to allow the speakers to play music simultaneously in multiple rooms. Between and , the company released numerous speakers and added more services. They worked with Bruce Mau Design to incorporate a rebrand of the company, which took effect in . The company has partnered with other companies adding to their catalog of services, including iHeartRadio, Spotify, MOG, QQ Music, and Amazon Music.
They are also partnering with Amazon to enable Alexa to control Sonos speakers, intending to eventually work with every voice assistant on the market. Google Assistant will also be supported by Sonos at some point.
The company opened its own local studio and art museum, the Sonos Studio, in May as well as an official Sonos Store in SoHo in July.
Sonos was founded in by John MacFarlane, Craig Shelburne, Tom Cullen and Trung Mai, with MacFarlane wanting to create a wireless service. In , MacFarlane brought a prototype of the company's soon-to-be first product, the Digital Music System bundle of smart speakers, to CES and the remote at a Wall Street Journal press conference later that year. The bundle won the "Best of Audio" award at the CES Innovations Design and Engineering awards in November and was released in February . In March, the company introduced the ZP amplifier (later replaced by the ZP and rebranded as the CONNECT:AMP) as an add-on to the current Digital Music System bundle. The bundle was also announced to be sold in the United Kingdom later in May. This was joined shortly afterwards by the unamplified ZP (later replaced by the ZP, rebranded as the CONNECT) with analog and digital input and output connections to link a user's Sonos system to their traditional amplifier. In the ZonePlayer S (later rebranded as the PLAY:1) an amplified smart speaker was released.
In February , Sirius XM was added to Sonos' catalog of music services. In July, the company announced the PLAY:, a second, smaller, amplified speaker in its Play lineup of smart speakers and added Spotify to its catalog. MOG was also added to the catalog of services, with a free -day trial, in May.
In August , Amazon Cloud Player compatibility was added. In May, the company announced the SUB wireless subwoofer and added QQ Music to their catalog with collaboration from Tencent. Within the same month, Sonos announced the Sonos Studio, 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 on July.
In February, Sonos announced the PLAYBAR soundbar speaker. In October, Sonos announced a third, compact, smart speaker, the PLAY:1. In December, the company was estimated to have raised $ million in venture funding, including a $ million round; Its investors included Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Redpoint Ventures and Elevation Partners.
In March , the company announced a refresh of its universal Controller app for its system. In January , Sonos was rebranded by Bruce Mau Design, with a new visual identity and improved logotype that was created over the span of four years. Sonos also announced the limited edition Blue Note PLAY:1 in February, a collaboration with Blue Note Records, which went on sale in March. A new ("nd gen") PLAY:1 speaker was announced in September. In October, Amazon Music support was officially added following years of Cloud Player support and pre-orders for the PLAY:2 began the same month. In November, 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.
Apple Music became available for streaming in February and Sonos also released a study entitled Music Makes it Home Study. In March, 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, the company opened its first Sonos Store in SoHo. In September, the company announced that its products would become available at the Apple Store.
In January , McFarlane 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 , IKEA and Sonos announced a collaboration to build Sonos' technology into furniture sold by IKEA. The first products resulting from the collaboration will launch in.
The company currently offers eight powered speakers: four smart speakers (ONE, PLAY:2, PLAY:3 and PLAY:5), two soundbars (PLAYBAR and BEAM), a television sound system (PLAYBASE), and a subwoofer (SUB). It also offers the CONNECT:AMP to drive unpowered speaker pairs and the CONNECT to link a Sonos system to conventional audio equipment such as amplifiers and CD players. A key feature of whole house systems starting in was the adoption of Amazon's Alexa as a third-party voice controller. An updated version of the Sonos Amp was unveiled in August , with a planned limited release in December.
Multiple Sonos devices in a single household are connected to each other wirelessly or 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. A single ZonePlayer or ZoneBridge must be wired to a network for access to LAN and Internet audio sources when using this feature, or when creating a ./. surround setup. SonosNet. integrates MIMO on .n hardware, providing a more robust connection. Sonos does not implement wake-on-wireless technology, instead requiring that every Sonos player or bridge constantly maintains a wireless connection, even when in standby mode or connected by cable. The mesh network maintains signal in digital form throughout transfers, only converting to analog at the speaker endpoint, which was a distinguishing feature versus, for instance, Bose and Squeezebox as of . Sonos devices do not have power buttons, and the company claims that each speaker consumes -Win idle/standby.
Sonos previously offered dedicated handheld controllers. Sales of the more recent CR controller were discontinued in. Existing CR controllers continue to operate, however there are reports of touchscreen failures which cannot be repaired.. The previous CR ceased being supported in April .
Source: Wikipedia
