Dirk Libbey
Posts: 41 +0
It was announced earlier this month that Microsoft would be rebranding their streaming music service, Xbox Music, under the name Groove. With the launch of Windows 10 that rebranding has now taken place. An added bonus for users of the Sonos wireless music system is that Groove is now supported through the Sonos music app and supporting wireless speaker systems.
Xbox Music was never part of the Sonos system so users who had a house full of Sonos speakers, but also listened to music on their Xbox One, could not stream those playlists all over the house.
Groove is a subscription-based streaming music service, not all that different from Spotify or Apple Music, although Groove's integration with Microsoft's OneDrive also gives you the ability to upload music to the cloud and then access those files through Groove, so if you own music you can't find on the service you can still add it to your playlists.
The Sonos multi-room audio system uses wireless signals to play audio from your mobile device in any room that has a Sonos speaker. The lack of any wiring, beyond power cables, has revolutionized the home audio market and led to a multitude of audio companies to launch Wi-Fi-based audio systems.
Groove has some ground to make up in the streaming music business if they want to compete with Apple, Spotify, and Pandora. While the Sonos system is not in every home, adding the most popular wireless audio system to their mix is a good start. The name change probably won't hurt either.
https://www.techspot.com/news/61579-microsoft-rebranded-music-service-groove-now-works-sonos.html
