Sonos has canceled its streaming video player
Source: The Verge
Sonos has abandoned far-along plans to release a streaming video player, the company’s leadership announced in an all-hands call today. The product, codenamed Pinewood, was set to be Sonos’ next major hardware launch. It was already deep into development and has spent months in beta testing. But now the team behind it will be reassigned to other projects as interim CEO Tom Conrad reprioritizes the company’s future roadmap and continues what he hopes will be a turnaround from a bruising 2024.
The cancellation of Pinewood leaves Sonos without a significant new product to ship in the second half of 2025. The company most recently released the Arc Ultra soundbar and Sub 4 at the end of last year. Internally, some employees were concerned that Pinewood would ultimately become a repeat of the Sonos Ace headphones and see the company trying to take on well-established players in a new product category.
Instead, at least for now, Sonos will continue its all-hands-on-deck effort to restore the performance and reputation of its software. The Verge has reached out to Sonos for comment.
Pinewood was designed to offer many of the same streaming video apps as other devices on the market. But as I reported last month, Sonos also planned for it to double as an HDMI switcher and support passthrough functionality for gaming consoles, 4K Blu-ray players, and more. The box was also set to allow new configurations of surround sound systems using Sonos’ many speakers.
