Sonos launches Sonos Radio to help you discover new music while you’re stuck at home

Sonos is mostly known as a hardware company. Though the company has an app for its speakers, so far, it’s simply integrated and aggregated music from existing streaming services. That’s changing, as today the company announced Sonos Radio, its first real foray into curating and streaming music itself.

The service is free (albeit mostly ad-supported) and available to Sonos customers today. The feature is divided into a few main components:

• You can stream from over 60,000 radio stations around the world from partners like TuneIn and iHeartRadio, with more to come.
• The Sonos Sound System is the company’s “signature ad-free station,” curated and hosted by the Sonos Team, meant to highlight new releases in particular and delve behind the scenes into classics.
• There’s also a variety of ad-free stations focused on specific artists.
• And 30 more stations with “handpicked music inspired by Sonos Customers’ most loved genres.”

The company says it’s partnered with a company called Super Hi-Fi to level volume across songs and ads and provide seamless blending between songs and commentary.

Sonos says “nearly half” of time spent listening to its speakers is on radio, so providing its own solution customers can use without having to signup for any additional streaming services makes sense. The feature is rolling out via a software update starting today.