Australian technology news, reviews, and guides to help you
Australian technology news, reviews, and guides to help you

Sonos adds YouTube Music to its service list

Sonos users already get their pick of pretty much every music service to listen through their multiroom speakers, and now they get one more: YouTube Music.

When YouTube launched a music service last year, there was a feeling of “finally”, as Google embraced what practically everyone had been using YouTube for beyond watching movie trailers, cat videos, and people doing crazy things: using it as a music service.

Whether it was from listening to music videos, live performances, or just people who had uploaded an album with random art in the background so you could hear your favourite tunes, YouTube for music made a lot of sense, and so YouTube Music also made sense, offering an experience focused on music with some improvements my Google and YouTube thrown in for good measure.

There are two ways to listen, with the free YouTube Music offering an ad-supported listen on devices, and there’s also the ad-removed edition for YouTube Music Premium which is paid, and bundled into some Google Play Music subscriptions, as well. And while removing the ads is one reason to go for YouTube’s paid service — as it removes ads across YouTube entirely, not just the music platform — there’s now one other: support for Sonos.

If you happen to have a Sonos in your life, you probably already know that you get a lot of choices when it comes to music services you can add to your multiroom speaker system, and now there’s one more.

This week, YouTube Music Premium can be added to Sonos’ impressive service line-up, bolstering the over 70 services that are supported locally, at least by our count.

Sonos’ addition of YouTube Music means that playlists, albums, and songs saved through an account will automatically be shared to a Sonos account connected to YouTube Music, and the service will also create a “mixtape” playlist of your favourites and similar new songs, as well.

But while the inclusion of YouTube Music on Sonos potentially opens up Sonos’ music selection to more live and impromptu recordings, not to mention the music video cuts, you will need a YouTube Music Premium account to gain access on Sonos, as the service is premium and paid only.

That means if you want YouTube without the screen and with the music only, you’ll need to fork out a little bit of money, as this is a paid addition only.

However Sonos users will probably be used to that, as only a handful of services found on the Sonos platform can be accessed without reaching for that credit card.

Sonos users in Australia (and the rest of the world) should find YouTube Music available in the services section of their Sonos app.

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