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I bought my first Sonos elements in 2006, and used to love them. I still use Sonos, for lack of a better option (?) but have come to hate it, the devices, the
by bambax 9y ago
I bought my first Sonos elements in 2006, and used to love them.
I still use Sonos, for lack of a better option (?) but have come to hate it, the devices, the company, the whole "ecosystem", with the heat of a thousand suns.
It updates constantly, you can't ever refuse an update, updates stop the system just when you need to use it, change the UI for no reason, and every update breaks something. Every single iteration is a little slower; I used to keep an oldish ipod touch just to manage Sonos but now it's so slow it's almost unusable.
Since 2006 my use of Sonos HAS NOT CHANGED AT ALL: mp3s are stored on a Nas and they're played in various "rooms"; and sometimes I listen to radios; and THAT'S IT.
Of course Sonos as a company has to support new streaming services and whatnot, but why does it have to break everything in the process, or force all users to upgrade? Why can't it leave us alone??
Every 6 months I try to look for an open source alternative, maybe based on a Pi (+ relay to power up amps on demand) but have not been very lucky so far. Am very interested in any pointers to something simple to implement and that I would completely control.
- TheCondor 9y agoCheck out Wren speakers. They do have a smartphone app but I send them audio from bunches of sources, they sound great too.
- christoph 9y agoI have exactly the same feeling. It feels like every time I go to cook in the kitchen and open the app on my phone, it brings the update process up. Numerous times, i've lost connectivity entirely, which seems to only be fixed by deleting the app from my phone, re-installing, signing back in, going back through the basic pairing process. It just makes me want to throw the whole thing out. It's beyond maddening!! Why can't it support bluetooth without purchasing the stupid bridge? Sometimes I want to watch Netflix when cooking and have the audio come out the system. Somebody should bring out a decent competitor to fix these issues. I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
- kurlberg 9y agoI'm quite happy with a squeezebox server running on a linux computer, and music streamed to a Squeezebox Radio. Sadly these cannot be bought anymore, but there is a chromecast plugin that works with squeezebox server - I can then stream to a chromecast audioplug + powered speaker (edifier 1280T). Unfortunately the edifier does not have USB for chromecast power, but the sound is pretty decent. I've also streamed to a sony SRS-X 77 with a bit less success, there are occasional wifi dropouts.