Sonos launches ‘Radio HD’, a first paid-for subscription service for its smart speakers

A pair of SONOS speakerss on display between product a the Kanye West temporary PABLO store at The Galleria on August 19, 2016 in Houston, Texas (Bob Levey/Getty Images for Bravado)

Sonos has launched ‘Radio HD’, its first paid-for subscription service.

It follows the launch in April of Sonos Radio, which brought a range of themed music stations, and has become the fourth most popular service on its speakers. Those radio stations are free, and supported by ads between songs.

The new service brings many more stations, some of them focused around specific activities such as sleep or mindfulness. It also expands the programming that Sonos has offered in collaboration with artists, such as a new show with Dolly Parton called “Songteller Radio”.

It also adds high resolution songs, allowing users to stream in lossless CD quality, and the option to skip forward and repeat songs that have played. Sonos says that represents the highest quality of any streaming radio service.

Anyone signing up to the service will also receive the ad-free features on the Sonos Radio stations that already launched. That will also be coming to more countries, Sonos said.

The service will initially launch in the UK and US. It costs £7.99 or $7.99, though Sonos is giving away a free trial for the first month.

Sonos Radio HD is a little cheaper than other streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music, which both cost £10 per month in the UK. But it has limitations when compared with those competitors, such as having no ability to select specific songs or albums, and the fact that it can only be listened to through Sonos’s own speakers.

Other streaming services such as Apple Music have looked to focus on radio programming, despite also offering almost every piece of music on demand. Over summer, Apple announced that it would rebrand its radio offerings from Beats 1 to “Apple Music Radio”, and add a host of new stations that have presenters and playlists akin to those offered on traditional broadcasts.