Sonos has finally come to its senses and scrapped its ridiculous attempt to crash the overcrowded streaming hardware market. According to The Verge, the company has axed its long-rumored streaming box, codenamed Pinewood, which—let’s be honest—was a disaster waiting to happen.
It was never clear why Sonos decided to enter the streaming wars. Was anyone asking for this? No. Was there some massive, gaping hole in the market that only Sonos could fill? Absolutely not. Yet, for some reason, Sonos decided to build an overpriced, ad-ridden set-top box and charge people $400 for it.
The Streaming Gold Rush Nobody Asked For
Here’s the thing: every company wants a piece of the “streaming” pie, even when they have no business being in the kitchen. Sonos built its reputation on premium wireless speakers. So, of course, the logical next step was… a streaming box? Because what’s better than an expensive speaker company launching an expensive streaming device that nobody needs?
The rumored details made the whole plan look even worse. The box was allegedly just another uninspired black rectangle—because the world really needed another one of those. Its one “big” feature? An HDMI switch for juggling multiple inputs. Groundbreaking.
And let’s talk about the software. Sonos reportedly partnered with The Trade Desk, a company best known for digital advertising, to develop the box’s operating system. Translation? This thing was probably going to be a glorified ad machine. Nothing screams “premium experience” like a company mining your data and shoving ads in your face while you try to watch Netflix.
Sonos Has Bigger Problems
This cancellation is the first smart decision Sonos has made in a while. The company is still trying to recover from its catastrophic app overhaul last year—a blunder so bad that it broke fundamental features, enraged long-time customers, and wiped $600 million off the company’s market value.
Then there’s the Sonos Ace, the company’s first foray into headphones, which landed with all the excitement of a firmware update. It didn’t exactly fly off shelves, probably because the launch was overshadowed by the app debacle.
Now, with its CEO out and the company struggling to get back on track, Sonos is cutting dead weight. And Pinewood was dead weight from the start.
The Take: Stick to What You’re Good At
The best thing Sonos can do right now is to focus on fixing its brand. That means making speakers people actually want, not chasing some misguided dream of becoming the next Apple TV. The streaming market is already overflowing with cheaper, better, and more established options. Sonos’ only real play here was to lock users into its ecosystem and mine their data, which—surprise!—isn’t exactly a compelling sales pitch.Maybe, just maybe, Sonos has learned its lesson. But given the way companies love to shove themselves into markets they have no business being in, don’t be shocked if this idea gets resurrected in a few years under new branding. For now, though, good riddance to Pinewood.
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