We’ve been hearing for some months now that Sonos is close to releasing a new TV streaming device. Its existence was first reported back in 2022, but that was when the project was still in its very early stages; the actual product launch was tipped for late 2024, or perhaps very early in 2025. And a new report suggests that not only is the device’s development well advanced, but that Sonos has made a surprising choice for its streaming OS.
According to the very well-informed Janko Roettgers of Lowpass.cc, who broke the original story about Sonos’ streamer, the device isn’t going to run Google TV or any of the other smart TV OSes you’re familiar with. Instead, it’s going to use a brand new streaming OS as the first hardware partner of The Trade Desk.
The Trade Desk is a really big digital advertising company, and it’s reportedly been building its own streaming OS for five years now. That OS is apparently nearly ready to go, and you’ll see it on the Sonos streamer first.
The operating system is apparently based on Android AOSP, the open source offshoot of Android. Android TV is built atop AOSP, but it’s owned and certified by Google. Other firms are welcome to use AOSP to create their own operating systems, and it seems that The Trade Desk has done exactly that.
What we know about the Sonos streamer OS
If you’re wondering why Sonos didn’t just make its own OS for its streamer, the ongoing and damaging debacle over Sonos’s app update perhaps suggests that outsourcing this one – Sonos’s very first attempt at a TV streamer – was wise. But there are other reasons for the outsourcing, too.
As Roettgers explains, “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.” By going for an OS that’ll be on multiple firms’ devices rather than just its own, Sonos can make itself look like a much safer bet for the big-name streamers – streamers that in many cases The Trade Desk already has strong relationships with.
This appears to be a win-win deal for Sonos and The Trade Desk: the former gets to customize the OS to suit without also having to create it from scratch, while the latter gets Sonos-quality hardware to show off what its system can do.
And with advertising becoming an increasingly large part of every streaming provider’s plans, teaming up with one of the biggest ad providers looks like a particularly smart move – for Sonos, at least. Whether the box itself lives up to its theoretical promise of being a winning mash-up of a Roku and AV receiver remains to be seen.
