Welcome to Lowpass! This week: A scoop on Sonos and its TV plans, and a $10 streaming device that lacks some key content.

Sonos is The Trade Desk’s first hardware partner

Sonos is getting some outside help in its quest to expand to video: The smart speaker maker has teamed up with digital advertising giant The Trade Desk for its still-unannounced TV streaming device, I have been able to confirm with multiple sources with knowledge of the partnership.

The Trade Desk has been secretly building its own smart TV operating system since late 2019, as I was first to report earlier this month. I’ve now been able to confirm that Sonos is the company’s first hardware partner for the still-unannounced project. Under the arrangement, The Trade Desk is supplying Sonos with the core smart TV OS, and facilitating deals with app publishers, while Sonos is designing its own hardware, and customizing the user interface.

Sonos and The Trade Desk did not respond to requests for comment.

Sonos had originally planned to launch the streaming device late this or early next year. It is now expected to release it in late Q1 at the earliest, according to Bloomberg. The company recently delayed the launch of multiple products as it struggles to recover from a botched mobile app roll-out.

The Sonos TV streamer is thought to be a set-top box that is closely integrated with the company’s home theater products. It is based on Android AOSP, and has been in development for multiple years: I was first to report in early 2022 that Sonos was hiring staffers to build a “Home Theater OS.” Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman subsequently reported that the company was developing its own streaming box under the internal code name “Pinewood.”

Why, you might ask, is Sonos teaming up with The Trade Desk on this project, instead of building the entire OS internally? Industry insiders told me that developing a smart TV from scratch is challenging, and not just for technical reasons.

One of the biggest challenges for hardware makers is striking agreements with the major streaming services to get access to their apps. Netflix, for instance, won’t even talk to device makers if they can’t convincingly make the case that they’re able to ship a certain number of units.

That’s why smaller TV makers generally prefer to strike licensing deals with smart TV platform operators like Google, Roku and Amazon to run their respective operating systems, as these platform operators already have established relationships with streaming services. However, going with any of these three companies (or competitors like LG and Samsung) would have had significant downsides for Sonos as well, as all of them have strict licensing requirements that would have impacted the interface, branding, and even remote control design of the device.

A Fire TV-powered Sonos streamer, for instance, would have looked a lot more like an Amazon device than a Sonos device. Plus, most of these companies are directly competing with Sonos in home audio, and Sonos is still in litigation with Google over alleged patent infringement.

The Trade Desk, on the other hand, does not make its own hardware. The company is also said to have given Sonos significant leeway with regards to the user interface design, and is offering partners better revenue sharing agreements than the competition. 

And while The Trade Desk is a newcomer to the TV OS space as well, it does have preexisting relationships with many of the major streaming services. The company recently began selling ads for Netflix, and also counts major media companies like NBCUniversal, Fox and CBS among its partners. The Trade Desk has secured agreements with a number of major streaming services to participate on its platform, according to multiple sources. It’s unclear what the final app line-up on the Sonos device will be.

Some Sonos fans may object to the idea that the company is partnering with an advertising company for its TV hardware. However, licensing any other TV OS would have come with the same strings attached, as Google, Amazon and Roku all run their own video ad businesses. 

Plus, advertising is increasingly becoming a part of the TV business. Consumers have embraced free, ad-supported streaming services as an alternative to basic cable, and almost all major subscription services now offer a cheaper, ad-supported tier. Even Apple is reportedly looking into rolling out an ad-supported version of its Apple TV+ service, which would require it to “deploy additional data collection techniques,” The Telegraph reported this summer. 

Senza: A hazy take on cloud streaming

Synamedia, a British company best known for making software and services for set-top boxes and pay TV operators, is out with a new streaming device: The company announced a new dongle dubbed the Senza Cloud Connector this week that it ultimately aims to sell for as little as $10 a pop.

Synamedia is able to make Senza for cheap because of a unique approach to streaming: Instead of downloading apps to the device, it is rendering them in the cloud, and then streaming them as a video feed to the device. When a consumer presses a button on the included remote, Senza sends a command to its cloud servers, and quickly adjusts the video stream.

This kind of cloud streaming is not new. ActiveVideo tried to teach old set-top boxes new tricks with a similar approach to cloud-based video before it got acquired by Charter in 2015. Google used cloud streaming for its Stadia video game service. More recently, Netflix has been experimenting with cloud streaming for its own games.

But while the technology has advanced significantly, there are still some challenges. One became obvious when Synamedia recently sent me a Senza dongle to try. In fact, I didn’t even have to connect it to my TV to smell trouble. 

Just take a look at the remote control included in the box:

Notice anything amiss?

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