Premium audio hardware maker Sonos has abandoned its plan to build and sell a streaming television device, according to a report published on Wednesday.
The streaming device — internally called “Pinewood” — was likely an Android TV-powered box that offered native integration with the various soundbars and other audio hardware built by Sonos over the past few years.
While there is no shortage of Android TV devices on the market, Pinewood was unique in two respects: It was set to be the first streaming TV gadget that ran a new operating system being developed by ad tech firm The Trade Desk, and it was going to cost between $200 and $400.
Now, those plans have been called off. According to The Verge, executives at Sonos told employees on Wednesday that the company was no longer moving forward with Pinewood, which was expected to be its next major product launch.
The cancellation comes amid some internal concern that Sonos was entering into a crowded market, one dominated by Roku and Amazon’s Fire TV, which collectively account for around 80 percent of standalone streaming TV devices sold in the United States.
Other hardware makers, including Samsung and LG, have found steady ground with their own proprietary streaming TV operating systems, which include a mixture of third-party apps, free video content and advertising.
Sonos employees were not the only ones concerned about the company’s decision to enter the streaming TV market: Some analysts also raised questions over why The Trade Desk — whose advertising business in the connected TV and streaming video space accounts for nearly 50 percent of its revenue — would undertake an ambitious project, given that it has lucrative partnerships with Roku and others.
Last September, The Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green said the company was not interested in directly competing against Roku and Amazon with its own operating system. But he also affirmed there were opportunities to tear down certain “walled gardens” that existed within the streaming TV industry and make a more-equitable playing field for content distributors and ad buyers alike.
Two months later, Green confirmed The Trade Desk was building its own streaming operating system, code named “Ventura,” which he said could thrive in the connected TV space because other companies that developed similar operating systems had conflicts of interest due to their positions as content distributors.
“We’re looking at a concentration around a handful of players that lack objectivity,” Green told the website Axios. “We think we’re in a unique position to make the ecosystem better.”
In February, shares of The Trade Desk fell more than 25 percent after the company revealed its fourth quarter (Q4) financial earnings that missed Wall Street expectations. It was the first time in eight years that the company did not meet analyst projections on revenue.
“The reality is that we stumbled into a series of small execution missteps,” Green admitted after the company released its earnings report. “As companies grow and become increasingly complex, they need recalibration to unlock new opportunities.”
It isn’t clear if the decision by Sonos was influenced by The Trade Desk’s business woes, but Sonos has faced a handful of missteps of its own over the past few years.
Last May, Sonos released a new app for its streaming audio hardware that was intended to give its users more personalized and customizable features, but wound up shipping with a number of bugs and glitches that frustrated customers.
In January, Sonos CEO Patrick Spence announced his departure. Jordan Saxemard, the company’s Chief Marketing Officer, left the following month.
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Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the name of the Sonos executive that departed the company in February.
