Starting today, you can control your Sonos speakers through Pandora’s mobile app. Users will be able to select rooms, group and ungroup speakers, and control the volume all from the Pandora app.
Spotify Connect allows users of the service to have similar control over their Sonos speakers, but you can’t group and ungroup speakers, and you have to pay for Premium to use any of its features; Pandora is letting all its users have access to its Sonos controls.
Pandora is also adding support for its Premium service for Sonos, and Alexa support for its radio stations through Sonos as well. The company says it’s the most popular service on Sonos, with over 250 million total listening hours in 2017. Pandora also says listening on voice-activated devices like the Echo is also up dramatically, with a 300 percent increase year over year.
Despite not enjoying the same recognition as Spotify and Apple Music, Pandora is still the biggest music streaming service in the US, and if its growth on connected and voice-activated devices continues, it may be able to hold on to that title, at least for little while longer.