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Sonos: users must accept new privacy policy or devices may “cease to function”

• justinjlynn 9y ago
  It seems like nobody actually owns anything any more - that we're all just digital serfs living on someone else's land. I really don't know why anyone would willingly make such a deal.
  • rglover 9y ago
    Convenience, everybody's favorite little shoulder devil.
    • raverbashing 9y ago
      If I had a nickel for every time I heard a stupid idea justified by "convenience" I'd be rich by now On that subject: https://twitter.com/internetofshit/status/895881274614665217 https://twitter.com/internetofshit/status/895881274614665217
    • crispyambulance 9y ago
      Convenience is a big deal and not a "little" shoulder devil. Sonos sounds great, has nice features and "just works".
      • ryandrake 9y ago
        > Sonos sounds great, has nice features and "just works". Perhaps not for long, if you do not accept their take-it-or-leave-it terms. Personally, I don't mind not accepting the TOS and simply leaving my software in the state that it currently is in, forever. My device is currently working acceptably, so I don't see why I need an update. But if they're saying it's going to eventually stop working, that's where any sane person should draw the line.
    • rconti 9y ago
      Sometimes it's just fine though. It probably depends on the up-front cost, and what value you derive from it. If Spotify stops working tomorrow, I can stop paying them, and we can all go home friends. I wouldn't consider my subscription fees over the past couple of years "lost". On the other hand, if I had to buy a $1000 device for the privilege of paying them $10/month, my anger level would probably depend on how many years I got utility out of that $1000 device before they shut down.
      • bigiain 9y ago
        I've got a friend whose still bitter and vocal about how his car's stereo no longer "works" because Pandora pulled out of the Australian market. Sure that well-over-$1000-device's main purpose wasn't "playing music from Pandora" and it still has it's primary "get to work" utlilty, but playing music is high on the secondary feature list of a lot of vehicle purchases...
  • crispyambulance 9y ago
    It doesn't seem like a terrible deal (http://www.sonos.com/en-us/legal/privacy http://www.sonos.com/en-us/legal/privacy). What part of the privacy policy do you specifically have an issue with?
    • Silhouette 9y ago
      The principle is at stake here. What the change is doesn't matter. The fact that the deal can be changed at all after a purchase has already been made is fundamentally unfair.
    • ralphm 9y ago
      The part where playing audio, including that from 3rd party sources, doesn't need Sonos to get any device usage data. However they still want it 'to improve their service', and you can't turn that off. Not accepting terms means that you'll never get firmware updates.
      • crispyambulance 9y ago
        OK, but "usage data" just doesn't seem like a big deal. Netflix and all other content providers collect "usage data" too, as does the devices these may run on such as "Roku" and other players.
        • FilterSweep 9y ago
          Streaming Content Provider vs. Physical Device specifically made to play music you physically own or streamed from devices you physically own.
          • crispyambulance 9y ago
            You can play stuff you physically own from a Roku too. Are you saying that Sonos could arbitrarily upload your media files to their servers? Doubtful. At worst, they could do a sound-print analysis locally on the device to identify it and send the metadata to Sonos. I am trying to think of concrete examples of scenarios where actual harm would REALISTICALLY be done to individual consumers because of Sonos privacy policy.
  • dvdhnt 9y ago
    Individuals haven't owned much in a very long time; we've been physical serfs living on someone else's land for even longer. You only "own" something so long as you pay taxes (aka rents) for the right to do so, otherwise someone, usually the government, will take it from you. Even if you don't want to play along, you can only be somewhere public for so long until you're loitering and subject to fines (more rents), confiscation (again, more rents), or removal. The whole system is pretty blatantly anti-competitive [1], detrimental to individuals [2][3], and rotting the system from the inside out [4][5]. 1. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-rent-seeking-is-too-damn-high/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-rent-seeking-is-too... 2. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-22/us-economy-perverted-neo-feudal-rent-seeking-abomination http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-22/us-economy-perverte... 3. https://hackernoon.com/rise-of-the-rent-seeker-how-the-subscription-economy-hurts-startups-entrepreneurs-its-af48fe98e555 https://hackernoon.com/rise-of-the-rent-seeker-how-the-subsc... 4. https://devinhelton.com/2013/04/14/rent-seeking-economy/ https://devinhelton.com/2013/04/14/rent-seeking-economy/ 5. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-13/banks-and-colleges-are-wasting-our-money https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-13/banks-and...
    • hellbanner 9y ago
      I highly recommend "Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition have Failed" reviewing the rise of top-down city planning especially in recent modern cities like Brasilia (which systematically removed public space & spontaneous street interactions by design) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bras%C3%ADlia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bras%C3%ADlia
      • dvdhnt 9y ago
        > Compulsory ujamaa villages in Tanzania, collectivization in Russia, Le Corbusier’s urban planning theory realized in Brasilia, the Great Leap Forward in China, agricultural "modernization" in the Tropics―the twentieth century has been racked by grand utopian schemes that have inadvertently brought death and disruption to millions. Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry? Thanks, it sounds like something I'd love; ordering a copy!
  • feelin_googley 9y ago
    Another view: Too many hardware products are being tethered to opaque "updates" delivered via untrusted computer network, namely, "the Internet". Security issues of the delivery mechanism aside, purchasers of these products are given no options on whether and how they may choose to "update" the manufacturer's software, or replace the manufacturer's software with an open source alternative. For example, if the manufacturer's software is closed source, the purchaser cannot verify what is in an "update". The manufacturer is under no legal obligation to tell her. As such, she may not be in a position to decide [ ] YES, I could use this modification or [ ] NO, this modification serves me no benefit The modification may serve some benefit to the manufacture, e.g., collecting data, but no benefit to the purchaser. It may be bundled with some other modification that benefits the purchaser but the purchaser cannot choose to accept or reject the modifications individually. Or the manufacturer may simply state a possibility that breeds fear among certain purchasers: that if purchaser does not accept all updates, then the hardware may "cease to function". Consideration by the purchaser of whether this is actually probable may be superseded by a perceived risk of not being able to use the hardware to its full capabilities. (For example, a router company may inform the purchaser that only the router company's software will allow certain performance specificatons to be met. If the purchaser installs an open source alternative software, then she will not be able to obtain the same performance. Of course there may be other benefits to the open source alternative besides performance, but the perceived "loss" of not reaching the performance specs advertised by the manufacturer is enough to convince many purchasers to tether the router to the manufacturer's "updates".) Purchasers own the hardware they purchase. It is the software, including "firmware", pre-installed by manufacturers that gives rise to these shenanigans. The less access and control, including choice of alternatives, that the purchaser has to such software, the better for the manufacturer who wishes to continue to exploit the sale of the hardware well-beyond the purchase date. When the purchaser of hardware is forced to accept the manufacturer's software, then I tend to agree with the comment. Regardless of whether the purchaser owns the hardware, if the manufacture controls the software, e.g. the manufacturer can "update" it at will or break it at will for anyone who does not "update", then with all due respect I submit that the manufacture ultimately controls the hardware. Thought experiment: Apply the above view to every item of hardware you have ever purchased. Consider whether it will apply to the next item you purchase.
  • syshum 9y ago
    Open Source, Open Hardware, Open Protocols That is the only way
    • ycmbntrthrwaway 9y ago
      Free Software, not Open Source If capitalists are not going to let us abolish copyright, we should abuse it, not pretend it does not exist.
    • kybernetikos 9y ago
      I've got a bunch of hardware that plugs into specific services like Pocket (ebook reader) or Spotify (my hifi). If those services go away, or for some reason I don't want to use them, there's no way for me to get equivalent functionality with some simlar service (e.g. I'd rather use pinboard.in than pocket). I would much prefer it if all of these services followed a publicly documented protocol and allowed me to configure which endpoint they talked to. I can't see this ever happening without regulation though.
  • leggomylibro 9y ago
    The answer is, nobody does. They implicitly agree under duress, because their time is worth far too much to even read 10 pages of fine print for every product they use. I'm not being flippant; it bloody well is. I'm not sure why courts consider that to hold any weight; to me it goes against the whole notion of informed consent in binding agreements. And to be fair, often the courts don't consider to hold any weight.
    • Sir_Substance 9y ago
      >They implicitly agree under duress, because their time is worth far too much to even read 10 pages of fine print for every product they use. I'm not being flippant; it bloody well is. You don't need to read 10 pages of fine print for every product, because it's functionally the same fine print for every product. If you don't like this, don't ever buy smart devices because they /all/ reserve the right to do this kind of stuff. I avoid smart devices like the plague. If I want my speakers smart, I'll connect them to a suitable control unit. The only thing I want from my speakers is for them to translate electrical waves into pressure waves, the more accurate the better.
      • cabalamat 9y ago
        All my speakers are low-tech analog only devices. There really is little benefit to making most of these devices "smart".
        • rconti 9y ago
          One benefit is not drilling holes in my walls to run speaker wire all over the place. Another benefit is not having an audio player tethered in one place. A third benefit is being able to change the audio settings from any one of a half dozen devices in my house.
          • _khau 9y ago
            One benefit is not drilling holes in my walls to run speaker wire all over the place. Another benefit is not having an audio player tethered in one place. A third benefit is being able to change the audio settings from any one of a half dozen devices in my house. Okay, but that's just wireless tech. Why do they need to be constantly connected to the internet and phoning home?
  • david-cako 9y ago
    For someone like me, my decision making for any electronics I buy is "how extensible is this thing, how much control can I exert over it, and how much control does it exert over me". My willingness to have a poorer experience is unfortunately not as strong as some FOSS enthusiasts. I'm happy to relinquish some control to Apple so long as they continue to provide me with positive experiences (AirPlay, for instance). Fortunately everyone is piling into the "works with everything else" crowd, so you don't really have to opt for something particularly power-user-oriented anymore. HomeKit doesn't fall too short of an ISY-99i based system, for instance. I can only imagine if I wasn't excited by FOSS and linux to begin with. There is zero hope of escaping the cloud-trap for someone who doesn't have the knowledge or willingness.
  • rbcgerard 9y ago
    Because no one really makes such a deal in an informed manner...imagine if products had a big warning label "future software updates are not included"
    • arghimonmobile2 9y ago
      It's even worse than that though. Even if you chose to forego updates promising features or better security, it seems like this product's box should actually say "not guaranteed to continue working past arbitrary dates, even if the hardware is still fine!"
  • bogomipz 9y ago
    This is so true. I refused to update a second generation Apple TV when after several updates I realized the "updates" added zero functionality to then end user. They were just occasions to put new paid-placement crapware on the home screen. I kept up this refusal to update partly out of stubbornness and partly as an experiment. Eventually, after a few months Apple just applied the update without asking. It was at this moment that I realized "I may have purchased this device but I certainly don't own it."
    • tinus_hn 9y ago
      The list of services on older Apple TVs was online (and cached). The services were more like websites than like apps and you could supply your own by manipulating DNS and installing your own certificates. It could change without firmware updates.
• voidz 9y ago
  The actual solution is simple: stop using these devices.
  • thecopy 9y ago
    Could you recommend some alternatives?
    • cjsuk 9y ago
      Harmon Kardon Onxy bluetooth and fuck the smart features.
    • lightedman 9y ago
      An appropriately-loud sound system that fills the whole house with music. I can hear my Bose radio throughout the entire apartment, without digital interference because everything is wired.
    • Angostura 9y ago
      I have one of these and am generally really happy with it http://www.monitoraudio.co.uk/products/airstream/s200 http://www.monitoraudio.co.uk/products/airstream/s200
    • justin66 9y ago
      Run Squeezelite on multiple Raspberry Pis paired with decent USB audio adapters (Berhinger UCA222 - decent analog and also optical out). Music served from a PC using the standard Logitech Media Server software, playback controlled with either the standard web interface or the Squeezer android app. Plug the RPis into decent stereos (not a powered speaker unless you are some kind of rabid animal) and you've got a good setup that can be controlled from anywhere in the house. Multiple stereos can playback in sync and be controlled from the same UI.
      • pavel_lishin 9y ago
        Does Logitech Media Server integrate with all these doodads: http://www.sonos.com/en-us/streaming-music http://www.sonos.com/en-us/streaming-music ?
• INTPenis 9y ago
  I bought one of those for my gf because I wanted to see if it was any good. Quick review. iOS users have to use their spotify app which is lousy. Google Play users can cast to it, thankfully. Major positive point is that it uses wifi and supports casting from Google Play. But for my gf who uses iphone she hates it. Overall we prefer the Marshall bluetooth speakers over Sonos because in an apartment there's rarely a need for wifi casting music. Edit: Chromecast audio is also a viable alternative. Based on how well my regular Chromecast (video) works for me I assume the audio one is as good.
  • mikerice 9y ago
    There is a Sonos app for iOS, though? But agree using the Spotify app to manage it is pretty lousy but then I just switch to the Sonos app.
• lamecicle 9y ago
  I remember a time when the phrase "if you don't know what the product is, you're the product" made sense. Now it's, "if you don't kn... oh f*ck it, you're the product!"
  • cm2187 9y ago
    The sentence is if you don't pay for the product, you are the product. But Sonos isn't exactly free. It isn't exactly cheap either.
    • JetSpiegel 9y ago
      Note that the original sentence is a one-way equivalence. Just because you pay for the product, doesn't mean you can be the product too.
  • givinguflac 9y ago
    Read the policy. It clearly states they don't sell data and you can opt out from usage info. Where does that make the user a product?
• mnw21cam 9y ago
  Sale of goods act (and similar consumer protection laws in so many countries around the world)?
  • Silhouette 9y ago
    That was my first thought as well. It's clearly not reasonable to assume a customer bought a product without any knowledge of arbitrary future changes in the legal terms but understood that the product could cease to provide the same functionality they bought it for later if they didn't accept those unrelated changes. This ought to be grounds for returning these devices to vendors as unfit for purpose and demanding that either they are fixed to continue working properly or some fair level of compensation is paid. Also, since we're getting some new data protection laws across the EU next year that are heavily weighted against organisations that process data, someone who is upset by this could probably annoy Sonos by doing things like accepting the policy, getting whatever updates they need to keep their device running, and then immediately giving notice that they withdraw their consent for processing any personal data. In the long term, I think consumer education may be the best solution to the problem of normal devices depending on fragile remote facilities. It is illegal to sell cigarettes in my country without showing very obvious warnings about how smoking is harmful to your health. Perhaps it's time that any software or electronic devices that rely on someone else's servers or remote hardware to function have to have 1/3 of their packaging (including 1/3 of the total screen area for any web pages or app purchase screens) used for a big statement that this may cause the software or device to stop functioning at any time, or to give an actionable guarantee about how long such support will be provided for as a minimum, and that any advertising for such things has to describe the "purchase" in terms of being a rental rather than buying something.
    • crummy 9y ago
      Isn't Sonos just saying, if you don't accept the new privacy policy you won't get updates? I highly doubt they're going to deliberately (somehow) break devices for users that refuse to update.
      • 9y ago
• DarkKomunalec 9y ago
  RMS was right again.
  • avs733 9y ago
    I'm torn between two responses... 1) RMS is always right. 2) RMS is that you?
• jeffehobbs 9y ago
  I'll be honest, I'm just glad to see they are still actually working on their software.
  • mikerice 9y ago
    It's so good but still so buggy. Very much a love-hate relationship.
    • zippergz 9y ago
      Really? Are there certain services you find to be buggy? I feel like Sonos is one of the least buggy pieces of tech in my house. That's what I love about it. It just works, I don't have to explain to non-technical family members how to work around issues, etc. But we almost exclusively use it for Apple Music and Spotify, so maybe there are some rough edges we haven't encountered.
      • senectus1 9y ago
        try playing music that is stored on your phone the sonos... it keeps cutting the effing song off short and starting the next song too early. a bug that's been around forever and they plain refuse to fix it.
        • zippergz 9y ago
          Ok, yeah, that's definitely not a use case I have tried. (In fact, one of the biggest reasons I switched to Sonos from using Airplay is that I wanted to get away from relying on my phone's network connection to have the music play.)
        • givinguflac 9y ago
          I do this all the time. Have you contacted Sonos for help?
      • mhb 9y ago
        Listening to some podcasts requires some distasteful hoop jump throughing.
• softwaredoug 9y ago
  Is there a use case for Sonos that good Bluetooth speakers don't address more simply?
  • cujo 9y ago
    * Shared playlist/queue between all users of a household. * No need to have a second device present to stream music. That is, I can start up music with the controller on my phone, and go to the store, but the music still plays since all the streaming is handled by the sonos speaker. * No need to pair your phone/computer to the device every time you come home. Just get on the wifi, and you're set. Those are the big ones for me, and honestly they're huge. On the flip side, the biggest pain point is that you're beholden to whatever music services they include in their controller, and you have to use their controller to play music. So while they support Apple Music, I can't use the Music app on my phone to play it. I have to drill through the Sonos app and find what I want. It works pretty well, but it's annoying. Also, I can't stream Audible books, or Overcast podcasts since they aren't supported by the Sonos controller.
    • eric_b 9y ago
      Just an FYI you can play on Sonos directly from Spotify now - that was a huge game changer for me.
    • majewsky 9y ago
      Why would you need to play music at home while you're going to a store? Also, activating Bluetooth is as frictionless as activating WiFi.
      • pgm8705 9y ago
        Because you aren't the only one enjoying the music at your home. The most annoying thing about being at a party where bluetooth audio is being used is when the person paired gets too far away from the speaker.
        • 9y ago
• natch 9y ago
  Maybe there is a Google acquisition looming and this is being dictated by Google. Speculation obviously, but look what happened with Nest.
• allwein 9y ago
  I might understand this if it was for new customers going forward. But I don't understand how they can tell their existing customers this and not expect a lawsuit.
  • inopinatus 9y ago
    I am considering a complaint to the ACCC here in Australia. It's possible this sort of thing violates our consumer protection laws.
    • voltagex_ 9y ago
      I'd be really interested in the outcome of this. You may be better going to your state's Office of Fair Trading first though.
• swiley 9y ago
  If you can't read the source and build the firmware yourself you don't own the device. It's that simple. Stop putting up with closed non trivial firmware and these sorts of problems go away.
  • lj3 9y ago
    Which makes your options 'roll it yourself' or 'do without'. Just because somebody chose door #3 doesn't mean they should be expected to get shafted at every opportunity.
    • CaptSpify 9y ago
      I agree that they shouldn't expect to, but they shouldn't be surprised either.
• avs733 9y ago
  What is provided to the consumer/user in exchange for agreeing to this contract? I assume, because I am becoming increasingly nihilistic about technology, that challenges to this would fail in court. However, this seems to fail both the consideration and the competency and capacity elements of a functional contract.
• throwawaymanbot 9y ago
  Who's purchasing them? Privacy tweaks like this, always come before the announcement.
• throwaway2016a 9y ago
  As a Sonos (I have close to $2000 worth of products) user this actually doesn't bother me. To all the people talking about ownership. I find it hard to believe the aux in will cease to work. So worst case is they turn into regular speakers. What it sounds like is you won't be able to update your firmware. So more likely than not, everything would keep working but random Internet related services (like Spotify Integration) may break over time because, for instance, if Spotify changes their API you won't get the software update to fix it. And that is why I think it is OK. Software updates over the Internet are always subject to licensing. That is not new and not unique to Sonos.
  • pavel_lishin 9y ago
    > So worst case is they turn into regular speakers. If I wanted regular speakers, I would have bought regular speakers.
    • throwaway2016a 9y ago
      My point being the speakers are the only part of it that are a product. Everything else is clearly a service. The part of the speaker that is actually a product is unlikely to stop working.
      • alphaalpha101 9y ago
        Everything else is 'clearly' a service? On what basis? You buy a product, it has these features, you can do these things, that's the product. Being able to play music on a 'smart speaker' from my phone isn't a service, it's just a feature of the product. If you sell a product with features that require you to host some servers somewhere publicly accessible on the internet, that doesn't make that product feature a service. Don't like that? Don't include those features in your product. Design them better so you don't have to forever maintain these servers.
        • pavel_lishin 9y ago
          To be fair, one of the "features" is streaming Spotify, which may require a constant dance to keep up with API changes.
• pm24601 9y ago
  And reason #458 why I am skipping the whole "IoT revolution" in my home. I consider this motivation for DIY.
  • FilterSweep 9y ago
    Once you get past library installation problems, RPis are great for this type of thing.
  • ViViDboarder 9y ago
    There are a good amount of IoT devices that work offline and don't use public internet at all. I specifically buy devices that aren't bound to the Internet and I've found a good amount.
    • CaptSpify 9y ago
      Where do you typically find them? I've had very little luck with that
      • tjohns 9y ago
        For one... Philips Hue. The lights connect to a Zigbee base station, which has a local API for controlling the system. (The base station does connect to a WAN server for remote control, but you could always block that at your firewall. The system works entirely fine in local mode.)
        • CaptSpify 9y ago
          The last time that I looked, the Hue/Zigbee/whatever protocols were still fighting over each other to become the standard. Has that settled down?
    • alphaalpha101 9y ago
      I'm pretty sure by definition IoT devices use the internet..
    • deleted 9y ago
• cm2187 9y ago
  To be honest I had a pretty average experience with Sonos so far. It is connected with cat6 ethernet, professional switches, with no other connectivity problems on that network (and I tested all cables). I have 3 systems (pay1, play 5 and the sonos amp), and they keep losing track of each others, I have to regroup them regularly. They also struggle with long music tracks (i.e. 1h podcasts off a synology shared drive) and often stall in the middle. If they brick my devices, I will only be half upset.
  • stock_toaster 9y ago
    If the units are also wifi connected (sonos mesh networking), then either only plug in one of them to ethernet, or fiddle with your switch spanning tree cost values. As I recall, sonos uses the older standard spanning tree values, and until I fiddled with my managed switch settings, the sonos were regularly bringing down my local network, and/or winning the elections so that large amounts of my lan traffic went over their wireless mesh network. Pretty crappy default configuration on Sonos' part (using old default cost values), if you ask me.
    • cm2187 9y ago
      No I never configured the wireless setup, I wired them to ethernet straight away.
      • rblatz 9y ago
        They self configure into a wireless network called sonosnet if they are wired together.
        • cm2187 9y ago
          How do I switch that off then? I don't see any option in the windows sonos app's settings. I just see a Advanced Settings/General/Wireless Setup but that's to connect it to a wifi, which I do not want to do.
        • stock_toaster 9y ago
• pantsofhonking 9y ago
  Wow talk about blowing something out of proportion. The new software comes with new terms. If you don't accept the new terms you keep the existing software. Over time, it is possible that current software sill stop working with e.g. some future Pandora API, and you'll have a choice of either updating your software or foregoing that feature. I have a Sonos in every room of my house and I've owned them since the very first generation. Sonos has been extremely good about updating the software. The current software still works on the very first hardware, with all the functionality save for a single feature, room-correcting equalization, that requires the newer DSP. This company is the gold standard of ongoing software support for consumer goods and this article is trying to spin the situation in just the perfect way to make the Internet commentariat explode.
  • xg15 9y ago
    Whatever the rationale, the posts's core statement - that either people accept new contract terms or their device will brick the next time they change the API - is correct. [edit] apparently the models have a line-in socket? In that case, I agree, them turning into regular speakers is better than bricking. However, I still think the article is relevant as it highlights the problem of ownership and terms of sale with IoT devices. (The conditions under which you bought the device can change arbitrarily after the sale)
    • givinguflac 9y ago
      This is silly, no one is saying they are going to brick the hardware, ever. But if you don't update and years later Spotify decides to change their end points, Spotify will likely stop working on your very outdated speaker. If you have any google account or android device, they already have literally orders of magnitude more info on your life than Sonos would ever be able to collect. Not to mention Sonos has said it doesn't ever sell the data, AND you can opt out of usage info. Not seeing the problem here.
    • smueller1234 9y ago
      The smallest model, Play:1 doesn't have a line in. IMO it also the best size/design/sound/price trade-off of the entire line. :(
• JimRoepcke 9y ago
  Sonos: I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.
• eveningcoffee 9y ago
  There should be way to fight it back. If this kind of thinking spreads even more it will suffocate our society.
  • cm2187 9y ago
    Plus this is no way to treat a customer if you want them to be repeat customers.
• thrillgore 9y ago
  I've long considered going to Sonos, but I think i'll stay with my Plex VM and my NAS
  • prawn 9y ago
    Plex just updated their privacy policy to infuriate users before walking it back after many people complained loudly.
    • thrillgore 9y ago
      Well, that's nice. Until they change it without people noticing. I wish MediaTomb or Ampache was a better DLNA server than Plex.
• pedrocr 9y ago
  Anyone have another suggestion for a pair of wifi speakers that can be assigned to Left/Right to get stereo and can be network streamed to and have another device on the network with a line-in? I was about to buy 2 Play1's and a Connect to do a stereo install in a room where I don't want to run speaker cable. I had researched wackier home-built solutions and was going to give up and go for the Sonos. Now I'm once again considering wackier home-built stuff like 3 raspberry pi's attached to line-in and two dumb powered speakers.
  • pedrocr 9y ago
    If anyone is on the same boat here's the best non-smart/IoT/lock-in tech I've come up with for a single room setup with wireless speakers: 1) 4 to 1 HDMI splitter with audio out: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/HDSW4-HDMI-Switch-4X1-With-Audio-Toslink-Coaxial-Audio-Output-4-Input-with-1-Output-Selector/32718400191.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/HDSW4-HDMI-Switch-4X1-With-A... 2) Connect all your sources through HDMI (your PC, your TV box, a Chromecast, a raspberry, etc). There are versions with more inputs if you need that. That one has a nice simple remote. 3) Connect the HDMI splitter audio output to a RF audio transmitter: https://www.altoproaudio.com/products/stealth-wireless https://www.altoproaudio.com/products/stealth-wireless 4) Use some powered studio monitors with one of the RF receivers each (there are plenty to choose from) This way if you're streaming audio+video everything syncs up because the RF link adds very little latency (unlike the Sonos that adds 70ms). The chromecast gives you easy streaming of audio and video from all your apps and if you are only streaming audio you can just turn off your TV/projector and the audio still works fine. The speakers can be placed anywhere there's power. It doesn't have the fancy multi-room and 5.1 possibilities of the Sonos nor the good industrial design.
    • voltagex_ 9y ago
      Just a note - if you move to 4K+HDR you'll probably need to upgrade that splitter.
      • pedrocr 9y ago
        Indeed. I'm only running a 1080p projector so I was mostly looking for something that was cheap enough and had a very simple remote. That specific one looks great in that I can easily take a black marker and label the inputs 1 through 4 on the remote itself.
• CaptSpify 9y ago
  I looked at these speakers a few months ago. They look really cool. As soon as I saw that they require phoning home, I said "lolno" and built my own speaker system with RPIs. I love the idea of smart devices, but only as long as the software is Free and Open. I really don't understand people who think situations like this are acceptable.
• hkmurakami 9y ago
  This is why I will never want my home to be "smart". You'll have to pry my physical wall switches and copper wires from the cold, dead hands.
• MikeGale 9y ago
  I suspect that legislators are so far behind the curve on this, that they'll never protect decent humans from such guys. Answer: Forget the protection afforded by the state. Protect yourself. Blacklist the scum manufacturers, warn your acquaintances. What other suggestions.
  • driminicus 9y ago
    In this specific case: if you own a sonos, try to get your money back over this.
  • givinguflac 9y ago
    Have you even read what data is being collected? Sonos is not a scum company, though the article is providing badly inaccurate info.
    • sverige 9y ago
      Sorry, but any company that wants to collect my personal data just to continue using their product after I've purchased it, is scum.
      • forcemajeure 9y ago
        Any company that isn't collecting data on which features are being used is missing an opportunity
        • sverige 9y ago
          And they need my personal information for that because...?
          • givinguflac 9y ago
            Again with the unfounded statement. Where are you giving away personal info? You register the device with an email, what personal info do you think they're collecting? Do you think they can identify you because you named a speaker "living room"??
• circa 9y ago
  For some reason I read this as Sophos. That would not be good.
• exabrial 9y ago
  Lawsuit time
• bogomipz 9y ago
  I am sincerely curious and maybe a Sonos owner can offer some feedback. what does Sonos offer me now that a streaming music provider, a smart phone and a portable bluetooth speaker doesn't? I understand that Sonos can stream to multiple "zones" simultaneously but besides the occasion of a house party how often is this necessary? This news to me is just another reason for me to never buy one.
  • pantsofhonking 9y ago
    Sonos keeps playing if your phone moves which is a pretty huge plus, especially if you know people and don't lead a life of solitude. Their hardware also has a wealth of hardware features like analog and digital inputs, zero-delay input monitoring which makes them suitable as TV or computer speakers, the ability to monitor those inputs from any zone, even if you aren't listening to them on the physically attached player, phase-locked multichannel playback, a zero-config self-extending wireless network, multiuser queue management, and twelve years of flawless software support (so far). The idea that you get the same thing from a raspberry pi, an android, and some hacks is strictly for those valuing their own time at zero.
  • rconti 9y ago
    So, even in a 1100sqft house, I consider the multiple-zone streaming to be of great utility. In fact, I almost NEVER use my Sonos setup without all 5 speakers going. Yes, you can always blast the audio in one room in order to hear it well in others, but it's quite nice to be able to listen at a comfortable volume in all rooms. It allows one person in the house to call out to another and still be heard, for example. I have it set to wake me to the local streaming radio, so that's a nice feature, but of course it could be replicated. I can throw my phone into a passing cement mixer and the music keeps playing in the house, and then I can open the controller on my laptop and hit "next track". In this way it's fairly analogous to the Spotify controller where I can change the music from any device in the house, but the "playing" happens on the device itself; it's not actually streamed from my phone or computer. Also, until sometime in the past couple of years Bluetooth was godawful unusably unreliable. It's gotten REALLY good lately though, and suddenly I love it.
  • sgustard 9y ago
• solomatov 9y ago
  This problem should be solved in a legislative way, similar to Europe's GDPR. There should some minimum privacy rights which can't be opted out of and which are protected by government. That's the only viable solution. Markets don't help here.
  • programmarchy 9y ago
    Why wouldn't the market help? This is a great opportunity for a competitor to offer privacy features and capture market share with a better offering. Promise privacy in perpetuity or your money back, and if consumers care then they will switch.
    • eropple 9y ago
      Because people already bought the things and it would be profoundly shitty to buy them again? Lock-in is real. And let's be real: what you've written should be written as "privacy in perpetuity or maybe part of your money back years later after a class-action lawsuit, maybe, if it isn't just store credit." That, as much as anything, is why consumers caring is attenuated.
      • programmarchy 9y ago
        It's a luxury speaker, so not the end of the world. The consumer could sell on eBay, or if it makes sense a competitor could offer incentives like taking trade ins for a discount, etc.
    • amirmc 9y ago
      Because intricate things with downsides that are difficult to understand is exactly where legislation can protect consumers. The whole 'if consumers care' thing is kinda bullshit. They simply don't have the time or ability to get into the details. It's even more of a problem when companies train users to just accept changes to agreements, so they can keep using a physical device that sits in their home.
    • solomatov 9y ago
• sverige 9y ago
  I hate all smart devices. The TV should just be a TV, the dishwasher should wash dishes, the refrigerator should keep stuff cold, the washing machine and dryer should clean my clothes, and speakers should just produce sounds. I have yet to hear any compelling reason to make these devices dependent on software.
  • KMag 9y ago
    My degree is in mechanical engineering, but I work in software development. Software is eating the world for good reasons. How many gates would it take to have a pure hardware decoder for ATSC? A microcontroller-based dishwasher timer is much cheaper to design and manufacture, and wears out more slowly under many conditions, than a mechanical timer. I wouldn't be surprised if a micontroller could wring another 1% efficiency out of your refrigerator vs. an analog or mechanical controller. A microcontroller inside the speaker could perform some digital signal processing to account for the speaker's frequency response, so that the receiver doesn't have to know any details about the speakers. Now, I do see little reason to make any of the non-TV appliances you mention reliant upon network connectivity or anything outside themselves apart from power and physical consumables (soap, water, etc.). Ideally, the television itself would be split into a screen with only HDMI in, and a small box or dongle that performs ATSC reception, decoding, and any smart TV functionality. The television itself should be something like a Chromecast.
    • white-flame 9y ago
      "Smart" does not mean computer-controlled, as opposed to mechanical. "Smart" implies that it talks to and is controlled and updated via the internet and usually cell phone apps. Offline non-smart devices are still wholeheartedly welcome to use computers for internal and local control.
    • gruturo 9y ago
      The "Smart" in the post you replied to stands for something else than your examples (which are absolutely valid uses cases!). We could summarize it as "needlessly Internet connected, reporting to some endpoint in the cloud outside of your control, which is now a point of failure". Indeed my dishwasher is likely more reliable, and my fridge can get more efficient with a microcontroller. But the 2017 version is likely to suddenly stop working is someone in Korea forgets to renew a certificate (or worse, become part of a botnet, or act as an breach in the security of your network like the aquarium in Vegas I read about lately). Most of the times, the "added value" of this new dependency is harvesting your data for profit (which won't get passed down to you as a better price, don't worry).
• iomotoko 9y ago
  mhm, please excuse me all if this is wrong, but isn't this the exact same way it works with pretty much all of the updates from e.g. Apple and co? Let's say a new Itunes update comes along, this requires the user to opt into a privacy policy, if there happens to have been a change in said policy since the last update, then accepting the new conditions is required in order to install the update? Same for an update in browsers, iOS, Android, ... I am not in favour, just confused as to why this specific case is singled out? Especially since not updating critical software (Operating systems, browsers, et cetera) seems to have far more serious consequences than w/ a speaker?
  • sowbug 9y ago
    Hardware vs. software. Declining update and choosing to live without new features vs. ceasing to function.
    • iomotoko 9y ago
      "[...] the customer will not be able to update the software on their Sonos system, and over time the functionality of the product will decrease." Sounds to me like maybe the bluetooth syncing with a recent smartphone or something of that nature might not work if the speaker didn't receive a certain update, which I consider a possibility. The "cease to function" seems like a nightmarish-description of such. It's not like "not updating" will magically brick the device. Edit: my point being that not updating software is not about not enjoying certain features, it's in many cases being incredibly vulnerable to certain types of exploits, in the case of an OS or browser a far more serious consequence, is it not?
      • sowbug 9y ago
        That point is a bit of a red herring. The question isn't the value of the update; it's whether existing customers should have to accept inferior terms of service to get it. The right path for Sonos would be to open-source the kernel and hardware drivers, then either keep it up to date with a base feature set or budget $100K or so a year to run a bounty-based community contribution program. That will end the complaints that Sonos risked bricking hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of consumer hardware so its marketing department could harvest email addresses. Not everyone would like that choice, but it would be a better choice than the gradual decay of perfectly fine (and expensive) hardware that should otherwise last for decades. Unfortunately the economics of service-oriented consumer hardware is all screwed up these days. Should buying a proprietary connected geegaw for a single up-front fee entitle me to eternal updates? In what non-pyramid-scheme economic model does that work? Yet in our world where we're still weaning ourselves from the dot-com years, that's typically the expectation.
• jwr 9y ago
  While I don't like this new development, I will drop in one data point: I bought my first Sonos devices more than 11 years ago, and over this time they all received software updates with increasing functionality. Think about it: my first Sonos players were bought in the pre-iPhone times. A lot has changed in the tech world since then. This is something other manufacturers could learn from. It seems these days most products are launched by marketing teams: fire and forget, the moment the product is out the door, all software development ceases and it never gets updated. I do hope they reconsider the new privacy policy, though. It's worrying.
  • FussyZeus 9y ago
    My parents have a couple of Sonos devices in their home. The support is amazing. But this "Accept the new policy or we brick your shit remotely" thing needs a HARD and FAST response, this cannot be a "Well eventually the market will-" NO, FUCK THAT. If we allow manufacturers to do this sort of shit, that's the final nail in the coffin for IoT. It's already a dumpster fire in terms of software.
• invisible 9y ago
  I'd be interested how those complaining about this "problem" would handle the business decision of how to update your terms when adding software that relies on third party offerings. If they add support for Some Music service, do they make it an awful experience where you have to agree to the terms for each vendor? In earnest, what is a better approach here?
• ace_of_spades 9y ago
  Maybe it's just a naive idea but wouldn't it make sense to have "smart devices" be smart in sofar that they have some local computation power and the ability to communicate near range? Maybe have local orchestrator (e.g., apple tv, google home, what not) dedicated for communicating with companies while the rest stays rather dumb and completely interchangeable. Why is literally every smart device sending back information to another company?? Why aren't Distributed IoT and Smart Objects paradigms more of a thing already?
• interstitial 9y ago
  How else are they going to tell if you're a Neo-Nazi and they need to suspend your account? Know-your-customers kept us safe from brown-skinned terrorists, now we need to keep ourselves safe from the Great White Menace. I applaud the invasion of my privacy. I have nothing to hide.