Sonos has offered iOS — and more recently Android — apps for its music systems for some time now. The rise in popularity of smartphones and inexpensive tablets has seen the company formally announce that it’s discontinuing its standalone controller, although locally we won’t see the discontinued controllers dropping in price.
I’d originally seen this story via Slashgear, but was curious about the local position for this, so I put a call into Sonos Australia. According to representatives, it’s something that’s been planned around for some time; with the rise of cheaper Android tablets and smartphones specifically there was more of a market opportunity for switching to an app-based control approach, especially as it is now possible to connect to Sonos’ mesh networks with both the Android and iOS apps even where there’s no home Wi-Fi capability within a premises. There are no plans to sell off the physical controllers cheap, with existing stocks expected to last a couple of months. Hardware support for the controllers should extend for a couple of years, and there are no specific plans to cease software support. [Sonos]
Sonos Dropping Physical Controllers In Favour Of Apps
