Sonos has announced a new venture that sees it going beyond its traditional high-end home audio hardware for a new product category: software-as-a-service (SaaS).
Sonos Pro, a subscription-based model, is targetted at commercial users who already use Sonos and other compatible hardware, to help them play audio more efficiently across their businesses, including multiple locations simultaneously.
It centers around an online dashboard designed to manage commercially-licensed music across more than one site though the US is the only market to gain support from day one.
Sonos Pro for business
Detailing the growth for Sonos products in commercial spaces, company CEO Patrick Spence paints the picture of businesses returning to normality, seeking to provide customers with an all-round sensory experience in-store.
Spence says: “After testing different features in hundreds of business locations to better understand the needs of businesses and the complexities of commercial audio, we’re proud to deliver a simple solution that was designed from the ground up to meet the needs of this audience.”
The remote management capabilities of the online dashboard support things like playlist queuing as well as administering permissions to certain team members to take control. Subscribers also get access to Sonos Backgrounds for a hassle-free pick of easy-on-the-ear tunes.
The SaaS works with Sonos S2-compatible devices, which includes a number of One and Era devices, as well as the Port or Amp for connecting to your own hardware that would otherwise be non-compatible.
US customers can expect to pay $35 per month for each location for the platform on top of hardware, and the company plans to expand Pro to more countries afterwards. Sonos declined to comment on plans for a wider rollout, but a company spokesperson told TechRadar Pro: "I don’t have details to share on that today, but we look forward to bringing Sonos Pro to more markets over time."
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